Numberpedia: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know (and a Few Things You Didn't) About Numbers

Description

What does the number 67 mean to you? Do you associate it with a year? After all, 1967 was the year The Beatles released both Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour. It was also the year the first Super Bowl was held and in which Ernesto "Che" Guevara was executed. But maybe the year 1967 isn't the first thing that comes to your mind. Maybe when you think about the number 67, you think of the . . . Age of George Washington at the time of his death, on December 14, 1799. Atomic number of the chemical element holmium, symbol Ho. Number of counties in each of the states of Alabama, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Most doubles hit in a season in Major League Baseball history (Earl Webb, Boston Red Sox, 1931). Number worn by partners Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin in the dance marathon scene in the 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Estimate number of miles, in millions, from Venus to the sun In Numberpedia, author Herb Reich examines all of the random, seemingly unrelated trivia related to numbers 1 to 100 in painstaking detail, revealing lore, myths, and every bizarre factoid you'd ever want to know about those numbers-except, of course, those concerning math.

Herb W. Reich has worked a lifetime in publishing. He spent 15 years as senior acquisitions editor at John Wiley & Sons. Before that, he administered the behavioral science publishing program at Basic Books and served as editorial director of the Macmillan Book Clubs. He is the author of the Skyhorse title Lies They Teach in School. He edited The Odyssey Scientific Library, contributed to The Random House Dictionary of the English Language and the Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology, and spent two years as a staff writer with NBC-TV.