Reaching for the Extreme: How the Quest for the Biggest, Fewest and Weirdest Makes Maths

Ian Stewart

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF PROFESSOR STEWART'S CABINET OF MATHEMATICAL CURIOSITIES

'Britain's most brilliant and prolific populariser of maths' ALEX BELLOS

How much land can you enclose inside a given border? To colour in a map so that no region shares a shade, what is the minimum number of colours you can use? What is the shortest route between two cities? And what's the best strategy for a prisoner's dilemma?

These questions have something in common: they are about extremes. Shortest lines, smallest areas, least energy, fewest colours. These issues have given birth to many of the deepest and most important areas of mathematics and are more than mere thought experiments - their applications range from Dido's founding of the city of Carthage to contemporary satellite navigation systems.

From soap bubbles to the cosmos, Reaching for the Extreme tells the fascinating stories of mathematicians' quest for extremes - their historical roots, the struggles to solve them, and how the results have changed our lives.