Manil Suri’s new book, The Big Bang Of Numbers looks at the field of mathematics beyond the equations and arithmetic exercises that stump school students. So when you leave out calculations, what’s left? Ideas, says the distinguished university professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland, USA. It leaves the mind free to look at maths as an entity that is older than the universe, removed from religion, and often more perfect than Nature. With maths, you can simply build a universe from nothing. Suri shows you how.