Many people approach mathematics with fear and trembling. They remember it as a subject from school that was boring, pointless and difficult to understand.

This course will take you down some mathematically less travelled roads. In particular, we shall look at some ideas about numbers that I hope are stimulating and interesting.

There will be no sums to do but I shall try to get your brain engaged in some subtle thinking. I hope to show you that mathematics can be a source of awe and wonder, and that, as Hamlet almost said, “There are more numbers in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.