Number Nine. The Search for the Sigma Code

Number 9 tells the story of Enjil, a boy mathematician who is challenged by a spirit to solve the riddle, What is the fixed point of the wind? As Enjil searches for the answer, he and the reader embark on a journey through myth, legend, and religion. Enjil s adventures lead readers to an appreciation of symmetry within asymmetry, classical ideas, and modern impulses. Along the way Balmond redefines arithmetic for the lay person and opens the gateway to further discoveries.

Reader's comment from Boston - 16 June 1998
Congratulations on an intriguing and enchanting work!

Reader's comment from architect at New Haven - September 1998
Thanks so much for the wonderful book - mysterious and lucid and a great telling of this fantastic adventure.

Reader from Haifa, Israel - 13 October 1998
First of allow me to congratulate you on a most inspiring book ... and thank you... for the book you have wrote.

Reader from Germany - 27 September 1998
I was overjoyed to find Number 9, The Search for the Sigma Code in my local bookshop yesterday. I have been fascinated with the same number for many years and have built up a small dossier of events and coincides all revolving round the number 9... I have always thought 9 to be a magical number, a number of consequence and portent. Your books some way to confirming my beliefs. It was a jolt and a joy to find another believer.

Reader from Los Angeles - 17 October 1998
I really enjoyed the book's concept. What most intrigued me is the way you have interwoven the story of Enjil with the fascinating quest for magic qualities of Number 9.

Reader from New York - 9 September 1998
You are the only person who can make math's mysteries understandable to me.

Reader from Kent - 6 December 1998
This is a book that has completely altered my way of thinking. From the moment I picked up the book and started to delve into the pages, I kept searching for the number 9 in my own life and now find that I am constantly counting up digits to determine whether they add up to 9. Nine is the number of initiation and departure. When I added up the digits in my date of birth it came to number 9 and the digits in my phone number add up to number 9. Yet before reading this book I have never given it any thought. As each new page revealed even more intrigues governing the number 9, I was spell bound. The book was such a fascinating insight into the world of numbers. It gave me so much pleasure and I would like to think that it would give many more readers the same pleasure and inspiration. It has opened up a whole new world for me.

Reader from London - 8 September 1998
As a teacher I have been frustrated by the limitations of the national curriculum. I have always felt that, because of the pressures in getting pupils through examinations, there is not the time to allow them to have fun with numbers and explore the wonderful world of patterns as much as I would have liked. Now here is a book, which does exactly that. It shows the reader that numbers can be fun. They are taken on a wonderful mystery tour and by the end of the tour will have made many wonderful discoveries on the way. It shows that numbers do not have to be 'boring'. I will certainly be recommending it to my pupils. But in addition I have many friends who share my love of numbers and they too have been charmed by the book.