Mickaël Launay believes that, just as non-musicians can love music, anyone can understand and marvel at the numbers and geometry that surround us every day.  In this book he guides the reader on a journey through the history of mathematics, revealing how curiosity and serendipity have led to new discoveries, from ancient Mesopotamian frieze designs and the earliest written number symbols to the Mandelbrot set, which can be drawn only with the aid of computers.