Mathematics Audiobooks | Science & Technology

Counting: Humans, History and the Infinite Lives of Numbers

Benjamin Wardhaugh (Author), David Thorpe, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Love Triangle: The Life-changing Magic of Trigonometry

Brought to you by Penguin. Why do mobile phones work when you're on a train? What happens when you pull a pop song apart into pure sine waves and play it back on a piano? And what did mathematicians have to do with the great pig stampede of 2012? The answer to each of these questions can be found in the triangle. Humans have been using triangles for thousands of years to build structures, measure the earth, make music, paint vanishing points, pot snooker balls and much, much more. But trigonometry is not a thing of the past - triangles underpin all of modern data technology. When someone Snapchats a photo, the light travels into the camera as electromagnetic sine waves, Fourier analysis compresses the image and then trigonometry is used to send the data to someone else's phone; when you listen to a track on Spotify, triangles remove the sounds which a human ear can't perceive and reassemble the song so that it's small enough to stream. Triangles are the hidden pattern beneath the surface of the contemporary world. Join Matt Parker, stand-up comedian and author of the first ever maths book to be a No. 1 bestseller, as he uncovers the secrets of trigonometry and shares extraordinary stories about the mathematicians, philosophers and engineers who dared to take triangles seriously. © Matt Parker 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2024

Matt Parker (Author), Matt Parker, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Playing with Reality: How Games Shape Our World

Brought to you by Penguin. A sweeping intellectual history of games and their importance to human progress. We play games to learn about the world, to understand our minds and the minds of others, and to make predictions about the future. They're also a lot of fun. But what happens when we mistake games for reality? WIN OR LOSE explores the riveting history of games since the Enlightenment, weaving an unexpected path through military theory, biology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and the future of democracy. As neuroscientist and physicist Kelly Clancy shows us, games have been deeply intertwined with the arc of history. War games shaped the outcomes of real wars in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe. Game theory warped our understanding of human behavior and brought us to the brink of annihilation-yet still underlies basic assumptions in economics, politics, and technology. We used games to teach computers how to learn for themselves, and now we are designing games that will determine the shape of society and future of democracy. Lucid, thought-provoking, and masterfully told, WIN OR LOSE makes the bold argument that the human fascination with games is the key to understanding our nature. ©2024 Kelly Clancy (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Kelly Clancy (Author), Patty Nieman, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Title TBA 328292

Author 77511, Nate Silver (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Math-ish: Finding Creativity, Diversity, and Meaning in Mathematics

Jo Boaler (Author), Jo Boaler, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Immaterial Existence: No Map to Reality

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. What is reality? What is existence? Does existence cease to exist? Reality is hard to pin down to one definition. Existence is being. Existence is being aware. Existence does not cease to exist. And it all depends on reality—your reality. The very word—existence—should describe the only real thing that exists in the universe and beyond—Consciousness. Consciousness alone and nothing else. Everything is conscious, even if you do not see it. The earth rotates. Movement indicates that the earth is doing exactly what was intended for it to do. What makes it rotate? The sun shines brightly always. The moon shines brightly too in the night. It is like clockwork. It just happens. It is programmed to happen like that. It is consciousness at work. Some call it nature—the forces of nature—they would chime in. But nature is following a script—a prewritten software. Nature cannot change this script. Nothing can change this script of a software for our earth, planetary system and indeed the universe because the program is set from the beginning. If you can understand that, well, you are welcome to a world created for the enjoyment of Consciousness. If you think about it, the universe seems to have been synchronized by an Intelligence science is yet able to put a finger on. Perhaps, Thomas H. Huxley—a biologist and humanist—said it best below: “It seems to me that there is a third thing in the universe, to wit, consciousness, which . . . I cannot see to be matter or force, or any conceivable modification of either . . .”

Sam Oputa (Author), Digital Voice Mike G (Narrator)

Audiobook

Starborn: How the Stars Made Us (and Who We Would Be Without Them)

A sweeping inquiry into how the night sky has shaped human history For as long as humans have lived, we have lived beneath the stars. But under the glow of today's artificial lighting, we have lost the intimacy our ancestors once shared with the cosmos. In Starborn, cosmologist Roberto Trotta reveals how stargazing has shaped the course of human civilization. The stars have served as our timekeepers, our navigators, our muses-they were once even our gods. How radically different would we be, Trotta also asks, if our ancestors had looked up to the night sky and seen… nothing? He pairs the history of our starstruck species with a dramatic alternate version, a world without stars where our understanding of science, art, and ourselves would have been radically altered.  Revealing the hidden connections between astronomy and civilization, Starborn summons us to the marvelous sight that awaits us on a dark, clear night-to lose ourselves in the immeasurable vastness above.

Roberto Trotta (Author), George Weightman (Narrator)

Audiobook

[Spanish] - La historia de los números (The History of Numbers)

A menudo no somos conscientes de hasta qué punto nuestras vidas se articulan en torno a los números. Podemos haber olvidado las reglas gramaticales, las fórmulas químicas, las leyes físicas, las narraciones históricas o los conceptos filosóficos aprendidos en el colegio, pero lo que nunca olvidaremos son los números. Nos pasamos el día contando, midiendo y pesando. Utilizamos los números para ordenar el mundo, y aún más, para construirlo. Este libro nos muestra, de forma amena y concisa, cómo nacieron y crecieron los números para llegar a formar parte de nuestra vida cotidiana, y cómo para ello se tuvieron que resolver grandes problemas y superar muchas dificultades, no solo las de naturaleza puramente matemática, sino también aquellas que se generaron en diferentes ámbitos, como el religioso o el filosófico. Enrique Gracián pone en juego su dilatada experiencia como docente y divulgador científico para mostrarnos los más de 3.000 años de historia que rodean a los números. Un estimulante viaje que comienza con la aparición de los números primos —objeto de profundas y sorprendentes investigaciones matemáticas a lo largo de los siglos— y nos lleva hasta los límites del infinito, el número más grande de todos y el único que consigue que las matemáticas y la filosofía encuentren un lugar común.

Enrique Gracián (Author), Joel Valverde (Narrator)

Audiobook

Around the World in 80 Games: A mathematician unlocks the secrets of the greatest games

'Brilliantly clear and captivating prose' Stephen Fry An award-winning mathematician explores the maths behind the games we love and why we love to play them. Where should you move first in Connect 4? What is the best property in Monopoly? And how can pi help you win rock paper scissors? Spanning millennia, oceans and continents, countries and cultures, Around the World in 80 Games gleefully explores how mathematics and games have always been deeply intertwined. Marcus du Sautoy investigates how games provided the first opportunities for deep mathematical insight into the world, how understanding maths can help us play games better, and how both maths and games are integral to human psychology and culture. For as long as there have been people, there have been games, and for nearly as long, we have been exploring and discovering mathematics. A grand adventure, Around the World in 80 Games teaches us not just how games are won, but how they, and the maths behind them, shape who we are.

Marcus Du Sautoy (Author), Mark Elstob (Narrator)

Audiobook

In Our Time: 25 Theories and Thinkers in the History of Mathematics: A BBC Radio 4 Collection

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 25 pivotal concepts, theorists and developments that have advanced the science of mathematics 'Might be the best radio programme ever' Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian In Our Time is a Radio 4 phenomenon, a knowledge juggernaut that has informed and entertained over 2 million listeners each week since its first broadcast in 1998. In its 25 years on air, it has covered an astonishing array of topics, from the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the Sistine Chapel. Beginning with three introductory episodes, this specially curated collection explores 25 of the most important individuals, ideas and discoveries that have transformed our understanding of mathematics over the past 5,000 years. We learn how Indian mathematics provided the foundations for much of our modern thinking, discover why Euclid's Elements is the most influential textbook ever written and hear of the epic feud between Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz over who invented calculus. Plus, we are introduced to influential mathematicians including Pythagoras, Blaise Pascal, Emmy Noether and Alan Turing, as well as key concepts, problems and puzzles such as negative numbers, infinity, Fermat's Last Theorem, the Poincaré conjecture and P v NP. Enlightening, thought-provoking and inspiring, these wide-ranging discussions make abstruse ideas accessible and demystify mathematics, showing how it shaped our world and made us who we are. Production credits Presented by Melvyn Bragg Produced by Simon Tillotson, Thomas Morris and Natalia Fernandez First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on the following dates: Part I: Context Mathematics 6 May 1999 Mathematics and Platonism 11 January 2001 Mathematics' Unintended Consequences 11 February 2010 Part II: History of Mathematics Indian Mathematics 14 December 2006 Euclid's Elements 28 April 2016 Maths in the Early Islamic World 16 February 2017 Renaissance Maths 2 June 2005 Calculus 24 September 2009 Part III: Influential Mathematicians Pythagoras 10 December 2009 Archimedes 25 January 2007 Blaise Pascal 19 September 2013 Emilie du Châtelet 4 February 2021 Carl Friedrich Gauss 30 November 2017 Ada Lovelace 6 March 2008 Emmy Noether 24 January 2019 Alan Turing 15 October 2020 Part IV: Key Concepts Zero 13 May 2004 Prime Numbers 12 January 2006 Negative Numbers 9 March 2006 e 25 September 2014 Pi 2 September 2004 Imaginary Numbers 23 September 2010 Infinity 23 October 2003 Part V: Problems and Puzzles Zeno's Paradoxes 22 September 2016 Fermat's Last Theorem 25 October 2012 The Poincaré Conjecture 2 November 2006 Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems 9 October 2008 P v NP 5 November 2015 © 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.

Melvyn Bragg (Author), Melvyn Bragg, Various (Narrator)

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Flatland

'Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions' is a satirical novella by Edwin A. Abbott, first published in 1884. The story takes place in a two-dimensional world and follows the experiences of A. Square, a mathematician and resident of Flatland. As A. Square discovers the existence of a third dimension, the book delves into themes of dimensionality, hierarchy, and social constraints. Though it might seem like a straightforward mathematical or geometric allegory, 'Flatland' also offers insightful commentary on the social and cultural mores of Victorian England.

Edwin A. Abbott (Author), Jason Smith, Jason Smith (male Synthesized Voice) (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Secret Lives of Numbers: A Global History of Mathematics & its Unsung Trailblazers

Brought to you by Penguin. Mathematics shapes almost everything we do. But despite its reputation as the study of fundamental truths, the stories we have been told about it are wrong. In The Secret Lives of Numbers, historian Kate Kitagawa and journalist Timothy Revell introduce readers to the mathematical boundary-smashers who have been erased by history because of their race, gender or nationality. From the brilliant Arabic scholars of the ninth-century House of Wisdom, and the pioneering African American mathematicians of the twentieth century, to the 'lady computers' around the world who revolutionised our knowledge of the night sky, we meet these fascinating trailblazers and see how they contributed to our global knowledge today. Along the way, the mathematics itself is explained extremely clearly, for example, calculus is described using the authors' home baking, as they pose the question: how much cake is in our cake? This revisionist, completely accessible and radically inclusive history of mathematics is as entertaining as it is important. ©2023 Tomoko L. Kitagawa & Timothy Revell (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Kate Kitagawa, Timothy Revell (Author), Daphne Kouma (Narrator)

Audiobook

Mathematics Audiobooks in Science & Technology