Do you want to design new fonts? Do you want to design a maze puzzle with start and end points? Do you know the mathematics behind the popular Angry Birds game? Do you want to create beautiful patterns that are observed in nature, such as broccoli, by computer? Do you want to understand the power of two (exponential growth or decay)? Do you want to know how the search engine Google works? Or do you want to play with computer pictures to make funny images? You can find out about all of these topics by reading this book.

This small, beautiful book is divided into 14 chapters with a bibliography and an index. Chapter 1 gives motivation to the reader about the book, and chapter 2 illustrates why many times math seems to give wrong results though they are correct. This highlights the power of numerical errors. Chapter 3 gives the feeling of exponential growth by using a simple example of tweets and the feeling of exponential decay using a binary search example. Chapter 4 gives the introduction to fractals using a small game, and shows how it can be used in creating nice landscapes. Chapter 5 discusses the computer font design problem and at the end talks about the underlying mathematics of the Angry Birds game. Chapter 6 talks about the Hamilton path problem and how a maze puzzle can be designed using small mathematical ideas. Chapters 7, 9, and 10 teach readers the tricks of playing with images and pictures. Chapter 8 talks about the power of calculus using chocolates and cake in calculating area and the value of &pgr;. Chapter 11 shows the power of math in a basketball tournament. Chapter 12 discusses the PageRank algorithm of Google using simple examples. Chapter 13 summarizes the book and motivates the reader to discover more applications of mathematics, and chapter 14 presents the solutions to some of the challenges posed in each chapter.

After reading the book, I can say that the author has done a remarkable job in collecting nice applications of mathematics in just 136 pages. The author also challenges readers with small, interesting problems to work on in each chapter. In some chapters, the book assumes some mathematical maturity, whereas in others, it assumes almost none, making it accessible to very young readers. I feel that there is something to learn for each age group as the applications considered are very modern, such as Twitter, computer fonts, Google search, and Angry Birds. This book will attract a large audience.

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