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Engaging new book explores how vital mathematics is to map-making

Paulina Rowińska's Mapmatics: How we navigate the world through numbers is an intelligent exploration of a fascinating subject

By Sarah Hart

19 June 2024

map of algers area

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…

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