In this highly readable volume of vignettes of mathematical scandals and gossip, Theoni Pappas assembles 29 fascinating stories of intrigue and the bizarre — in short, the human background of the history of mathematics. Might a haberdasher have changed Einstein's life? Why was the first woman mathematician murdered? How come there's no Nobel Prize in mathematics?

Mathematics is principally about numbers, equations, and solutions, all of them precise and timeless. But, behind this arcane matter lies the sometimes sordid world of real people, whose rivalries and deceptions are at odds with the mathematician's reputation for clear thinking and scientific detachment.