By: Simon Singh, read in 2009

18 The first six perfect numbers: 6, 28, 496, 8,128, 33,550,336, 8,589,869,056
49 "For Pythagoras, the beauty of mathematics was the idea that rational numbers (whole numbers and fractions) could explain all natural phenomena."
50 "Pythagoras's denial of irrational numbers is his most disgraceful act and perhaps the worst tragedy of Greek mathematics." Sorry - I agree with Pythagoras.
55 "...the seventh-century scholar Brahmagupta was sophisticated enough to use division by zero as a definition for infinity."
63 "All prime numbers can be put into two categories: those that equal 4n + 1 and those that equal 4n -1, where n equals some number. ...the first type of primes were always the sum of two squares...whereas the second type could never be written in this way."
126 Lewis Carroll's real name was Charles Dodgson
139 Goedel's theorems
143 In 1963 Paul Cohen proved the Riemann Continuum Hypothesis was undecidable.
160 "Hardy called Skewes's number 'the largest number that has ever served any definite purpose in mathematics.'"
212 Galois' life story
292 "...the difference between successive square numbers is always an odd number."
297 Axioms of arithmetic.