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Much Ado About Numbers: Shakespeare's Mathematical Life and Times by Rob Eastaway

Rata I.'s Recommendation for the 510 Club | January 2025

 

Much Ado About Numbers is a popular book that covers the everyday maths of the Elizabethan era, through the frame of Shakespeare's life and works. Each chapter is split up into short, chatty sections – like reading a series of blog posts – so it's a perfect pick if you're looking for an easy read to dip in and out of at leisure. 

With topics spanning measures of length and distance, colour, music, money, games and pastimes, pens and pencils (2B or not 2B?), astrology, calendars and other day-to-day calculations, as well as the creative ways Shakespeare would refer to numbers big and small, you'll find a lot of interesting historical trivia¹ to annoy/delight your friends.

The maths in the book doesn't get very deep by MathsJam standards (Shakespearian times are not known for their widespread numeracy; I probably picked up more about history and etymology!). Nonetheless, it's a sundry survey of some of the ideas making their way around England at the time, with asides featuring notable contemporaries such as Tycho Brahe, Robert Recorde, Thomas Harriot, John Dee and Sir Walter Raleigh. Eastaway has done a great job tracking down examples of the mathematics filtering through and showing up in lines of the Bard's plays and sonnets. Plenty more quotes and frequency tables of numerical references are studded in besides. It makes the case that really, you can find maths everywhere.

I must commend that the title appropriately upholds a dual legacy of puns (something both the playwright and popular maths books² are known for). In England, Shakespeare's generation was among the first to start using the Indo-Arabic instead of Roman numerals, introducing the digit '0,' or cipher, to their reckoning. 'Twas a time where there was Much Ado About Nothing indeed.

 

 

If your interest has been piqued, here's some related bonus content:

Gresham College free public lecture from the author, a speedrun through many of the topics from the book (YouTube, 43 mins). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuIxnbA4lDQ

Boethius blunders: the bumpy transition from the abacus to modern arithmetic from Rob Eastaway's blog, checking the working of an illustration from a 1503 educational encyclopaedia. https://robeastaway.com/blog/boethius-blunders

Philip Henslowe's Card Trick by Colin Beveridge at the Aperiodical, investigates a magic trick described by Elizabethan theatre manager Philip Henslowe. https://aperiodical.com/2024/09/philip-henslowes-card-trick/

A brief history of tally sticks and keeping score, a post from Pat's Blog with similar themes (though Shakespeare isn't mentioned); i.e. historical approaches to dealing with numbers / counting. Includes the British Parliament burning to the ground. https://pballew.blogspot.com/2025/01/a-brief-history-of-tally-sticks-and.html

 

 

 

Notes:

1. Among the copious fun facts: the word "trivia" comes from the basic "Trivium" of liberal arts that Shakespeare would have studied at grammar (primary) school. As for stationery, the year Shakespeare was born (1564) was the year graphite started being mined in Cumbria: pencils were possible, but rubber hadn't made it to the UK yet – bread was used as erasers instead. Also, did you know the word "influenza" comes from the belief in the "influence" of the stars?
    
2. e.g. Here's Looking at Euclid by Alex Bellos, Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil, How to Bake Pi by Eugenia Cheng

 

 

WHAT IS THE 510 CLUB?

The 510 Club is named after the Dewey Decimal classification for Mathematics. It is a book recommendation project facilitated by Mathateca in collaboration with Christchurch MathsJam. Each month we feature a mathematical book recommendation, whether that’s a novel, articles / essays, a puzzle book, textbook, biography... just as long as it features maths in some way. Read the above book at your leisure then feel free to comment your thoughts below, or come along to the following Christchurch MathsJam sessions to join in an informal maths/book chat with the reviewer.

We're always looking for suggestions! If you're interested in contributing a book rec one month, please email christchurch@mathsjam.com to sign up.