Coming soon:
Huge Numbers

Basic Books, April 2026

“Humanity has always been entranced by big numbers — the bigger the better. This fascinating exploration of the giants of the mathematical world is clear, informative, and immensely readable. Wonderful!”

– Ian Stewart

“A charming tour through the realm of the very, very, very numerous, from the ancient world through the distant future.” 

– Jordan Ellenberg

“Elwes provides a phenomenal scenic tour of googology (the study of huge numbers), covering everything from ancient Mayan and Babylonian numeral systems to the scale of the universe to the dizzyingly fast-growing functions of mathematical logic. I wish I had written this book.”

– Scott Aaronson

Dr Richard Elwes is a writer and Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Leeds in the UK.

YouTube playlist of Richard on Numberphile.

Blog Archive

  • 123 Musicophilia

    There is a meme circulating in the blogosphere where you have to turn to page 123 of a book you’ve recently read, and post the 5th, 6th, and 7th sentences. Here goes: “Absolute pitch…

  • Put a little science in your life!

    Inspirational stuff from Brian Greene in the New York Times: Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner…

  • A few words of explanation, in general terms

    I rewatched Breaking The Code the other night, the TV adaptation of Hugh Whitemore’s play of the life of Alan Turing, in turn based on Andrew Hodges’ book Alan Turing: the enigma. It’s a…

  • Defecating on an infinite number of keyboards

    Everyone knows that if an infinite number of monkeys bash away at an infinite number of typewriters, then eventually one will write the complete works of Shakespeare. So, in 2003, some researchers at the…

  • Mangling the universal language

    I just received an email from the TDA trying to recruit me as a maths teacher: “The universal language of numbers is ubiquitous. And its applications in the real world are infinitesimal.” So it’s…

  • The Four-legged Mince of Progress

    Do you get disappointed that life in the 21st century isn’t quite as last millennium’s sci-fi promised? Here are 3 videos I’ve seen recently, which suggest that we’re getting there. First, Boston Dynamics’ BigDog…

  • Can you hear the golden ratio?

    It’s a celebrated fact that the golden ratio produces beautiful shapes. But do its aesthetic qualities extend to music? Michael S. Schneider thinks he’s found it in one of the centrepieces of drum and…

  • More Musical Maths

    Ladies and Gentlemen: Calculus: the musical. I’d go, even if the concept isn’t totally original: (That’s Tom Lehrer for the undereducated.)

  • A Finite Simple Group Of Order 2

    Original by M. Salamone, performed by the Klein Four Group from their album Musical Fruitcake, available here. The lyrics are below the fold.