How many shapes are there? Is anything bigger than infinity? Is maths ‘true’? Former child prodigy Milo Beckman is here to upend everything you think you know about mathematics.

The three main branches of abstract math – topology, analysis, and algebra – turn out to be surprisingly easy to grasp. Or at least, they are when our guide is a maths prodigy.

New Yorker Milo Beckman took high school maths at age eight and attended Harvard at age fifteen. Now in his twenties, he joins us to offer a vivid, unconventional, and wholly original guide to the science that underpins the world – without using numbers.

In this livestream In Conversation event with broadcaster and comedian Robin Ince, he will invite you to think creatively about shape and dimension, the infinite and infinitesimal, symmetries, proofs, and how these concepts all fit together.

Milo will make human and understandable the elevated and hypothetical, allowing us to clearly see abstract maths for what it is: bizarre, beautiful, and head-scratchingly wonderful.

Praise for Milo Beckman’s Math Without Numbers:

‘Genius: an entire book about mathematics in which the only digits are the page numbers. . . fresh, delightful and extremely accessible’ Alex Bellos, Guardian

‘Beckman’s book is not only fascinating and enthralling but also one I actually kept my eyes open long enough to finish (in part because – and this is a massively underrated virtue in popular science books – it is short)’ Tom Whipple, Times

‘This guide to the maths we didn’t get taught at school is full of fascinating revelations’ Manjit Kumar, Times

‘I was hooked. . . what is delightful about the book is the vivid clarity’ – Tim Harford