★Rights sold in simplified Chinese.
★Numbers and their "secrets" as you've never known them, told by an astrophysicist and a historian.
★From minus one to infinity: a curious journey among numbers that are comfortable and uncomfortable, forbidden, illegal or censored, and - according to mathematicians - even sexy.

Numbers are wicked. They arise initially with great simplicity, in a «natural» way: 1, 2, 3 and so on. Then with equal simplicity they split up: 1/2, 2/3, 3/5... and by and by here they become irrational and then complex, even imaginary. But numbers are not just numbers. They have a history and even a human face, most of all if they are not taken headon but looked at sideways. The 0 had to wait a thousand years before it was taken into consideration in the West, but it has since won its revenge, becoming by far the most widely used digit in the world today. Less fortunate for a long time were the negative numbers: fictitious for Descartes, unacceptable for Pascal. The authors, with an anthropological approach, tell, jumping from -1 to infinity, about numbers that are comfortable and inconvenient, but also forbidden, censored, even illegal, and reveal to us all the secrets of simple numbers such as 1, -1 and 0, but also of alpha, «the magic number of which man finds no understanding,» and of Uncle Scrooge’s zillions and gazillions. Numbers, then, as you have never known them. A book for everyone, mild-a divertissement, but with a solid scientific basis-a stimulus for curious minds and a provocation to change the minds of those who quarreled with math as children.

Tommaso Maccacaro (Pavia, 1951), astrophysicist, has worked in Italy, England and the United States. He has held numerous positions in research management and organization. He was chairman of committees of ESO and ESA, director of the Brera Astronomical Observatory and finally president of the National Institute of Astrophysics. He has combined his research activities with a strong commitment to science popularization. He edited the essay La ricerca tradita (Garzanti 2007) and helped found the online journal «Scienzainrete.» With Tartari he published Storia del dove. Alla ricerca dei confini del mondo (Bollati Boringhieri, 2017).

Claudio Maria Tartari (Milan, 1951), an elementary school teacher from 19 to 39 years old - mainly devoted to the logicalmathematical area - graduated in History with a medieval focus and specialized in paleography. He then directed a conservation library with a historical-legal focus in Milan for as many years. He has published some 30 works, the majority focusing on the history of the Milanese territory. He has been a lecturer for decades.