Customer Reviews:
 Magical, Mysterious Numeral Nine September 4, 2003
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
What a beautiful little book. This is how I would have liked learning maths at school. If teachers could find a way of engaging children in looking at the "elegance" of numbers and their patterns, every child would want to be a mathematician. All "numerophobes" should read this and be enchanted by the quest of a young boy to prove himself to his teachers and the way you will fall in love with the number 9! I urge this to be on the national curriculum.
Brilliant December 8, 2000
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It captured the spiritual as well as the mathematical. A wonderful little read - for those who have an interest in what lies beyond numbers. A most unusual, charming book.
Enjil opens sesame April 23, 1999
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This little book is the story of Enjil, a boy on a journey. He takes us on his adventure, not through space but through that which articulates both time and space - mathematics. As the late Professor Brainard pointed out, the problem many have with mathematics is not its difficulty, but its simplicity. It's too simple to grasp, and yet profound in its simplicity! Instead of building wondrous edifices with mathematics, Enjil looks with clear, open eyes behind the foundations of number, the integers - and finds the number nine a wondrous lode. This journey takes him to the ancient world of myths, and to the magic world of Mandalas, Pascal's triangle and the Golden Section. Moreover, the book provides just a few short steps into the extraordinary world that Enjil finds. The author, Cecil Balmond, both explicitly and implicitly leaves much to be uncovered by the reader. For example, he leaves the connection between Pascal's Triangle and the Golden Section - the Fibonacci Series - unstated, but provides the old (Chinese) version of Pascal's triangle, where the Fibonacci Series is much more visible than in the modern format. All one has to do is go down the Chinese (right-angled) triangle at an angle of 45 degrees, and there it is! It is a book to return to, and savour - the sort I wish that I had been given when still a boy: one which presents the world of mathematics as one of delight, rather than the drudge it appears to be when presented by less gifted communicators than Mr Balmond. Buy it for your child, especially if your child is gifted like Enjil, for exactly the same reason as you would have bought the child a train set years before. To play with it yourself!
A great train ride! April 15, 1999
This little book is the story of Enjil, a boy on a journey. He takes us on his adventure, not through space but through that which articulates both time and space - mathematics. As the late Professor Brainard pointed out, the problem many have with mathematics is not its difficulty, but its simplicity. It's too simple to grasp, and yet profound in its simplicity! Instead of building wondrous edifices with mathematics, Enjil looks with clear, open eyes behind the foundations of number, the integers - and finds the number nine a wondrous lode. This journey takes him to the ancient world of myths, and to the magic world of Mandalas, Pascal's triangle and the Golden Section. Moreover, the book provides just a few short steps into the extraordinary world that Enjil finds. The author, Cecil Balmond, both explicitly and implicitly leaves much to be uncovered by the reader. For example, he leaves the connection between Pascal's Triangle and the Golden Section - the Fibonacci Series - unstated, but provides the old (Chinese) version of Pascal's triangle, where the Fibonacci Series is much more visible than in the modern format. All one has to do is go down the Chinese (right-angled) triangle at an angle of 45 degrees, and there it is! It is a book to return to, and savour - the sort I wish that I had been given when still a boy: one which presents the world of mathematics as one of delight, rather than the drudge it appears to be when presented by less gifted communicators than Mr Balmond. Buy it for your child, especially if your child is gifted like Enjil, for exactly the same reason as you would have bought the child a train set years before. To play with it yourself!
Nine as a magical number. January 16, 1999
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was overjoyed to find your book in my local bookshop yesterday. I have been fascinated with the same number for many years. I have always thought 9 to be a magical number, a number of consequence and portent. Your book goes some way to confirming my beliefs. It was a jolt and a joy to find another believer.
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