Johnny Ball's Wonders Beyond Numbers. Adults and teens.

Johnny Ball has been talking to adults and young people for over 40 years, mostly on Maths and Science, which all started in his TV days. For 12 years before that he was a successful comedian and his infectious humour pervades all his talking, teaching and illuminating of what are sometimes seen as “dry” and “difficult” subjects. He brings with him excitement, magic, inspiration and a great deal of fun and laughter. Johnny will recount being shown Russian Multiplication when he was 8 years old in a pub, and explains how it links directly to ancient Egyptian Maths and the Binary System which enables all our communication devices today. He will mention Aristotle, who was rated an idiot by later mathematicians who wanted to burn all his books. He will feature Hippocrates who has been totally missed by a whole swathe of Maths academics, yet who was more important than Euclid. He’ll show how an accurate Greek measurement of the Earth’s size was ignored, causing Columbus to mis-name The West Indies. Art and amazing Architecture will feature as the major driver of the Renaissance and Johnny will talk of Italians including Brunelleschi and Leonardo Da Vinci who found maths and could no longer stand the sight of a paint brush. Johnny will close his talk with Isaac Newton, who discovered the mathematical system that explains Gravity and Planetary Motion, and how things fall to or fly around the Earth perpetually and how it could be taught in a simple and far more straightforward way. He will finally show how this great hero, Newton, was sadly a tragic and disagreeable man, who was only known to have laughed once in his entire life. The talk is in great demand at Literary and Science Festivals, following successes at Henley, Oxford, Gibraltar and York where Johnny drew the largest audience of their entire festival.