It is impossible to find a coastline’s exact length, as it grows with the rising precision of measurements Lightguard/Getty Images
Mapmatics
Paulina Rowińska (Picador (UK); Belknap Press (US, out 17 September))
Mathematics helps us understand the world, and in Paulina Rowińska’s Mapmatics: How we navigate the world through numbers, the focus is on its indispensability in the making of visual representations of that world – maps.
As a mathematician, I already knew some of the theory, but it was a pleasant surprise to find this book full of fascinating examples and facts that I didn’t know, including…