The Number Devil

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The Number Devil is a book for children and upwards which explores mathematics by Hans Magnus Enzensberger.

In the book, a young boy named "Robert" encounters a sly number devil called Teplotaxl through the course of twelve dreams.

This book was a bestseller.

[edit] Fictional terms

The book uses fictional terms to describe aspects of maths that would otherwise sound very unappealing to children. Some examples are:

• vroom, factorial
• prima-donnas, prime numbers
• rutabagas, square roots
• unreasonable number, irrational number
• coconuts, triangular numbers (referring to the instance in the book when they drop coconuts onto the ground, forming triangles)
• hopping, exponent
• "number triangle", numbers on Pascal's Triangle

The book also refers to real-life mathematicians by imaginary names. Examples include:

• Professor Horrors, Carl Friederich Gauss
• Lord Rustle, Bertrand Russell
• Owl, Leonhard Euler
• Dr Happy Little, Felix Klein
• Man in the Moon, Johan van de Lune
• Bonacci, Fibonacci
• Professor Singer, Georg Cantor

A computer game was made based on the book.