Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them

  • A Journey to the Edge of Physics
  • By: Antonio Padilla
  • Narrated by: Antonio Padilla
  • Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (15 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them cover art

Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them

By: Antonio Padilla
Narrated by: Antonio Padilla
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £13.00

Buy Now for £13.00

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Biggest Number in the World cover art
A Brief History of Black Holes cover art
Existential Physics cover art
How to Die in Space cover art
Just Six Numbers cover art
Hyperspace cover art
The Elephant in the Universe cover art
In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat cover art
Our Mathematical Universe cover art
Something Deeply Hidden cover art
The Big Picture cover art
The Edge of Knowledge cover art
The Quantum Universe cover art
Why Does E=MC2 and Why Should We Care cover art
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry cover art
Welcome to the Universe cover art

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

For particularly brilliant theoretical physicists like James Clerk Maxwell, Paul Dirac or Albert Einstein, the search for mathematical truths—via ever more mind-boggling numbers—led to strange new understandings of reality. But what are these mysterious numbers that explain the universe?

In Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them, leading theoretical physicist and YouTube star Antonio Padilla takes us on an irreverent cosmic tour of nine of the most extraordinary numbers in physics. These include Graham's number, which is so large that if you thought about it in the wrong way, your head would collapse into a singularity; TREE(3), whose finite value could never be reached before the universe reset itself; and 10^{-120}, which measures the desperately unlikely balance of energy the universe needs to exist....

Leading us down the rabbit hole to the inner workings of reality, Padilla demonstrates how these unusual numbers are the key to unlocking such mind-bending phenomena as black holes, entropy and the problem of the cosmological constant, which shows that our two best ways of understanding the universe contradict one another. Combining cutting-edge science with an entertaining cosmic quest, Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them is an electrifying, head-twisting guide to the most fundamental truths of the universe.

©2022 Antonio Padilla (P)2022 Penguin Audio

What listeners say about Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    10
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Left feeling disappointed

I bought this book because I'd heard about Graham's Number and wanted to know more. How could a number so large that it cannot be written within the length of the Universe be conjured up in a mathematical proof?
Not wanting to give a spoiler, let's just say that it was an undefined upper bound of a very wide range of possible values.
The book left me feeling like there would be a lot more unemployed people if it wasn't for the universities keeping them in math departments around the world.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Just loved it

I feel more intelligent & connected just having listened. I have not enough time on my life really to listen again - which means I absolutely must listen again! Nice job m8

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I couldn’t stop listening!

Just buy this ok? It’s so good and very different believe me and very enjoyable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I got this on a whim, and I’m glad I did.

It cover some very cool concepts and history about numbers. It reignited the love I had for mathematics and made me thing differently about numbers.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!