**The First Ever Maths Book to be a No.1 Bestseller** 'Wonderful ... superb' Daily Mail What makes a bridge wobble when it's not meant to? Billions of dollars mysteriously vanish into thin air? A building rock when its resonant frequency matches a gym class leaping to Snap's 1990 hit I've Got The Power? The answer is maths. Or, to be precise, what happens when maths goes wrong in the real world. As Matt Parker shows us, our modern lives are built on maths: computer programmes, finance, engineering. And most of the time this maths works quietly behind the scenes, until ... it doesn't. Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near-misses and mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman empire and a hapless Olympic shooting team, Matt Parker shows us the bizarre ways maths trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world. Mathematics doesn't have good 'people skills', but we would all be better off, he argues, if we saw it as a practical ally. This book shows how, by making maths our friend, we can learn from its pitfalls. It also contains puzzles, challenges, geometric socks, jokes about binary code and three deliberate mistakes. Getting it wrong has never been more fun.

Learn about the most important mathematical ideas, theorems, and movements in The Maths Book.

Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Maths in this overview guide to the subject, great for novices looking to find out more and experts wishing to refresh their knowledge alike! The Maths Book brings a fresh and vibrant take on the topic through eye-catching graphics and diagrams to immerse yourself in.

This captivating book will broaden your understanding of Maths, with:

- More than 85 ideas and events key to the development of mathematics
- Packed with facts, charts, timelines and graphs to help explain core concepts
- A visual approach to big subjects with striking illustrations and graphics throughout
- Easy to follow text makes topics accessible for people at any level of understanding

The Maths Book is a captivating introduction to the world's most famous theorems, mathematicians and movements, aimed at adults with an interest in the subject and students wanting to gain more of an overview. Charting the development of maths around the world from Babylon to Bletchley Park, this book explains how maths help us understand everything from patterns in nature to artificial intelligence.

Your Maths Questions, Simply Explained

What is an imaginary number? Can two parallel lines ever meet? How can maths help us predict the future? This engaging overview explores answers to big questions like these and how they contribute to our understanding of maths. If you thought it was difficult to learn about topics like algebra and statistics, The Maths Book presents key information in an easy to follow layout. Learn about the history of maths, from ancient ideas such as magic squares and the abacus to modern cryptography, fractals, and the final proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

The Big Ideas Series

With millions of copies sold worldwide, The Maths Book is part of the award-winning Big Ideas series from DK. The series uses striking graphics along with engaging writing, making big topics easy to understand.

'Maths at its most playful and multifarious' Jordan Ellenberg Matt Parker, author of the No.1 bestseller Humble Pi, takes us on a riotous journey through the possibilities of numbers Mathematician Matt Parker uses bizarre Klein Bottles, unimaginably small pizza slices, knots no one can untie and computers built from dominoes to reveal some of the most exotic and fascinating ideas in mathematics. Starting with simple numbers and algebra, this book goes on to deal with inconceivably big numbers in more dimensions than you ever knew existed. And always with something for you to make or do along the way. 'The book oozes with sheer joy' New Scientist 'Matt Parker is some sort of unholy fusion of a prankster, wizard and brilliant nerd - clever, funny and ever so slightly naughty' Adam Rutherford, author of Creation 'Matt Parker never got the memo about maths being boring ... he seeks to reconnect us to the numbers around us' Simon Usborne, Independent 'Essential reading' Observer

Hacking the Kinect is the technogeek's guide to developing software and creating projects involving the groundbreaking volumetric sensor known as the Microsoft Kinect. Microsoft's release of the Kinect in the fall of 2010 startled the technology world by providing a low-cost sensor that can detect and track body movement in three-dimensional space. The Kinect set new records for the fastest-selling gadget of all time. It has been adopted worldwide by hobbyists, robotics enthusiasts, artists, and even some entrepreneurs hoping to build business around the technology. Hacking the Kinect introduces you to programming for the Kinect. You'll learn to set up a software environment, stream data from the Kinect, and write code to interpret that data. The progression of hands-on projects in the book leads you even deeper into an understanding of how the device functions and how you can apply it to create fun and educational projects. Who knows? You might even come up with a business idea.* Provides an excellent source of fun and educational projects for a tech-savvy parent to pursue with a son or daughter * Leads you progressively from making your very first connection to the Kinect through mastery of its full feature set * Shows how to interpret the Kinect data stream in order to drive your own software and hardware applications, including robotics applications What you'll learn * How to create a software environment and connect to the Kinect from your PC * How to create three-dimensional images from the Kinect data stream * How to recognize and work around hardware limitations * How to build computer interfaces in the style of Minority Report * How to interact directly with objects in the virtual world * The ins and outs of point clouds, voxel occupancy maps, depth images, and other fundamentals of volumetric sensor technology Who this book is for Hacking the Kinect is aimed at makers of all types. Tech-savvy artists can use the Kinect to drive three-dimensional, interactive artwork. Robotics hobbyists can create robots capable of seeing and responding to human motion and gesture.Programmers can create applications in which users manipulate data through physical motion and gestures. The creative possibilities are limitless, and fun Hacking the Kinect does require some programming background. Familiarity with programming in C++ or similar languages is assumed. Readers should also be reasonably comfortable working with electronics - for example, with Arduino or similar equipment. Table of Contents * Introducing the Kinect * Hardware * Software * Computer Vision * Gesture Recognition * Voxelization * Introducing Point Clouds * Enhancing Our Point Clouds * Object Modeling and Detection * Multiple Kinects