Pythagoras and all that Jazz: The incomplete and (very) concise History of Mathematics from Creation to the Middle Ages

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Was God the first mathematician? – how was maths involved in the murder of Abel by his brother? – how did two cats help to build the pyramids? – who founded the first ever college-based band? – who measured the Earth whilst sunbathing in his back garden? – and which female mathematician became a cult figure and starred in a West-end musical?
You’ll find the answers to these questions and much more in this light-hearted and very readable look at the “History of Mathematics from Creation to the Middle Ages”.

Written by an experienced maths teacher and brilliantly illustrated by a talented artist from the school at which he taught, you’ll find this book both informative and amusing. You will be encouraged to do a bit of research yourself using the newly discovered act of ‘Googling’ and one or two problems are set too – with answers of course at the end of the chapter!

Yes, the college musician was Pythagoras – the first ever jazz musician who saved someone’s life by laying on some timely laid-back music, but then he proceeded to murder one of his students for daring to suggest the existence of irrational numbers and was finally murdered himself when someone bearing a grudge torched his house – life was cheap in those days!

Have no fear there will be a Book 2 – yes, a sequel is on the way – “The Secret Diary of Isaac Newton aged 22¾” – and included at the back of Book 1 there’s a bonus chapter called “Newton’s Secret Diary” including a special poem that Robert Hooke might have written in Newton’s honour and a press cutting from the Grantham Gazette.