Saturday, March 14, 2015

Book: The Key to the Universe by Kjartan Poskitt

This is not a novel, also not a travelogue. It was just a reference book about Maths. Wait a second, Maths? Why should I read something like that? Truthfully, I love to read something that depicts weird and wacky facts like this. This book is actually on of the Murderous Maths series which I bought at the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale. Although the genre of the book seemed to be monotonous, they succeed to attract people using the attractive style of writing and figures and also the strange facts that they present in a funny way.

One of the topics that attracted me most is about the perfect number. Perfect number is a number which when their factors are added up, the sum is equal to the number itself. I doubt that you understand it. Let me take an example. 6 is a perfect number because when the factors (1,2 and 3 – 6 is not included) are added, it will give 6 as a result (1+2+3=6). Many people thought that the perfect number is used in our life, such as 28 (1+2+4+7+14+28=28) is the amount of days taken by the moon to revolve around the Earth. However, what about the bigger perfect number like 496 and 8128? In the book, they are mentioned as perfectly useless number as they just find it out for no reason.

This fact reminded me that there is nobody in the world that is perfect. If all of us are perfect, others will be useless. Just look around and see people with us. The chef cannot cook if there are no farmers or fishermen to provide them with raw food. The students cannot learn without teachers and books written by the authors. The workers cannot live without their leader and so on. We are all depending on one another. The differences between us should not be the reason to be separated, we should be thankful and use it to recognize them. Therefore, everyone will appreciate one another and the world will become peace.

Nevertheless, not all Maths facts that are useless. The golden ratio, also known as phi (ɸ), is one of the eminent ratio especially used by the artists to create amazing arts. It is actually an irrational number, which have a never ending value, which is 1.6180339887498948482045... This ratio is found to be in most natural creatures such as in the flowers, the nautilus shells of molluscs and many more. This ratio had also applied in the ancient arts such as Parthenon and the drawing of Mona Lisa. Even our body follows the golden ratio such as the ratio between our different fingers. Although the number is so irrational, but it is really useful for us.

Same goes with us. We might think that our ideas are irrational, but just try to realize it by using appropriate ways. Maybe it can be an immense idea in the future that could benefit us. I watched a video comparing a child and a man. A child think that nothing is impossible to be done although it will harm him or her. On the other hand, an adult sometimes feels that most of his or her ambition cannot be true. Somehow, a person with the same idea that work it out receives an award for the idea. Thus, never afraid to imagine anything, as long as we will work for it.


Referring to the title 'The Key to The Universe', numbers can be used throughout the world and even in other galaxies. It is not same as History, Science and Geography that only apply on certain parts of the world. However, that does not mean that the other subjects are useless. They are important to us to deeply recognize ourselves. Therefore, gain knowledge as much as you can and share them to be a useful person!

No comments:

Post a Comment