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  • If you know any youngster who’s interested in math, do them a favor and buy them this book. Heck, even if they don’t care about math, buy them this book anyway. I don’t see how anyone who doesn’t have a brick between their ears can fail to be inspired by the curiosity and enthusiasm of this down-to ... Continue

    If you know any youngster who’s interested in math, do them a favor and buy them this book. Heck, even if they don’t care about math, buy them this book anyway. I don’t see how anyone who doesn’t have a brick between their ears can fail to be inspired by the curiosity and enthusiasm of this down-to-earth young lady.

    

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• ― disturbingtheuniverse said on May 8, 2006 | Add your feedback

In January 1999, Sarah Flannery, a sports-loving teenager from Blarney in County Cork, Ireland, was awarded Ireland's Young Scientist of the Year for her extraordinary research and discoveries in Internet cryptography. The following day, her story began appearing in Irish papers and soon after was splashed across the front page of the London Times, complete with a photo of Sarah and a caption calling her "brilliant." Just sixteen, she was a mathematician with an international reputation.

IN CODE is a heartwarming story that will have readers cheering Sarah on. Originally published in England and cowritten with her mathematician father, David Flannery, IN CODE is "a wonderfully moving story about the thrill of the mathematical chase" (Nature) and "a paean to intellectual adventure" (Times Educational Supplement). A memoir in mathematics, it is all about how a girl next door, nurtured by her family, moved from the simple math puzzles that were the staple of dinnertime conversation to prime numbers, the Sieve of Eratosthenes, Fermat's Little Theorem, googols-and finally into her breathtaking algorithm. Parallel with each step is a modest girl's own self-discovery-her values, her burning curiosity, the joy of persistence, and, above all, her love for her family.

• MemoirMathMathematics