Is there anything more pointless, more mind-numbingly tedious, than doing a Sudoku? Ages spent fiddling and arranging numbers until they appear in a neat perfectly symmetrical grid meaning … nothing. Numbers can be full of meaning and wonder. Numbers underpin harmony and the beauty of music. Pythagoras thought they corresponded to the natural harmony of the universe. Digital cameras use millions of numbers to create an image but by using one I can produce more pleasing pictures than I ever could with film.
Numbers often give fascinating insights to the many curious and unpredictable aspects of our world. There are many paradoxes and unsolved puzzles that have intrigued mathematicians over the years. The four colour theorem claims that every map drawn on paper can be filled in with just four colours so that no two neighbouring …