Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-205) and index.

Once Upon a Number shows that stories and numbers aren't as different as you might imagine, and in fact they have surprising and fascinating connections. The concepts of logic and probability both grew out of intuitive ideas about how certain stories would play out. Now, logicians are inventing ways to deal with real world situations by mathematical means - by acknowledging, for instance, that items that are mathematically interchangeable may not be interchangeable in a story. And complexity theory looks at both number strings and narrative strings in remarkably similar terms.

Beside lucid accounts of cutting-edge information theory we get hilarious anecdotes and jokes; instructions for running a truly impressive pyramid scam as well as a new religious hoax; a freewheeling conversation between Groucho Marx and Bertrand Russell; explanations of why the mundane facts of the O.J. Simpson case are overwhelmingly incriminating; how the Unabomber's thinking shows signs of mathematical training; why we're much more likely to feel aggrieved than aggrieving; and dozens of other treats.

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