The Book of Numbers

Within these pages, every number of significance is listed together with its special qualities and associations, featuring explanations, for example, of how a pack of playing cards came to have fifty-two cards, or why there are fifty-two weeks in a year. Where else in one place could you find out how the illegal numbers racket works, what makes some people see numbers as colors, why the standard US rail gauge exactly matches the axle width of an ancient Roman chariot, and the numerological connection between Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden? Our lives are ruled by numbers and this book tells you about every one that counts.