Just ten signs enable us to write down all our numbers, no matter how small or large the quantities we wish to describe.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0These numerals probably originated in India but we call them Arabic because they came to the West by way of the Arabs, who are known to have used them at least a thousand years ago. Today they are used not only by the 300 million people in the world who speak English or by the 600 million who use the Roman alphabet but also for practical purposes by millions whose written languages are very different from our own, such as Chinese, Hebrew and Arabic.We live in a world full of numbers: on houses and shops, on buses and motor cars, on magazines and packages, on stamps and labels, in fairgrounds and markets, on boats and aeroplanes, on road signs and posters.In this book we have selected and photographed numbers from 1 to 100 in many different places and situations, serving a broad range of functions. These photographs show numbers in action in the world around us and demonstrate the wide variety of interpretations of the ten basic shapes that are possible: variations that are as often determined by the material or the instrument used as by the whim of the designer.Some light foxing, otherwise good.