| | Number 9: The Search for the Sigma Code. Cecil Balmond.
Known most for his work with Ove
Arup & Partners in London (as Director of the engineering
consultancy), Cecil Balmond has become the go-to engineer
for many well-known architects, such as Rem Koolhaas and
Daniel Libeskind. Aside from this highly visible work, he
also teaches and lectures widely, expressing the ideas that
go into his work as well as the relationship of art and
science. In Number 9, he has written a book about
mathematics that will appeal to those with even just a cursory
knowledge of the field, but more so to people who are frustrated
with numbers. In the search for the sigma code, Balmond
is accompanied by Enjil, a fictional master of numbers who
believes that math need not be difficult. The secret lies
in sigma, a single-digit number derived by adding the integers
of any number: 32's sigma is 5 (3+2), 123's sigma is 6 (1+2+3),
99's sigma is 9 (9+9=18; 1+8=9), ... Along the way the sigma
code is revealed as an imprint for all numbers, number 9
being the number around which all other numbers flow, as
well as a boundary for the same. While this may sound enigmatic,
Balmond explains this conclusion both through math and visualizations
(the cover's background being one such), the latter making
his ideas easy to understand and extremely convincing.
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