From the ampersat and amerpsand via smileys and runes to the ubiquitous presence of
mathematical and other symbols in sciences and technology: both old and modern documents abound
with many familiar as well as lesser known characters symbols and other glyphs. Yet who would
be readily able to answer any question like: 'who chose pi to represent the ratio of a circle's
diameter to its circumference?' or 'what's the reasoning behind having a key on my computer
keyboard?' This book is precisely for those who have always asked themselves this sort of
questions. So here are the stories behind one hundred glyphs the book being evenly divided
into five parts with each featuring 20 symbols. Part 1 called Character sketches looks at
some of the glyphs we use in writing. Part 2 called Signs of the times discusses some glyphs
used in politics religion and other areas of everyday life. Some of these symbols are common
others are used only rarely. Some are modern inventions others which seem contemporary can
be traced back many hundreds of years. Part 3 called Signs and wonders explores some of the
symbols people have developed for use in describing the heavens. These are some of the most
visually striking glyphs in the book and many of them date back to ancient times. Nevertheless
their use - at least in professional arenas - is diminishing. Part 4 called It's Greek to me
examines some symbols used in various branches of science. A number of these symbols are
employed routinely by professional scientists and are also familiar to the general public
others are no longer applied in a serious fashion by anyone - but the reader might still meet
them from time to time in older works. The final part of the book Meaningless marks on paper
looks at some of the characters used in mathematics the history of which one can easily
appreciate with only a basic knowledge of mathematics. There are obviously countless others
symbols. In recent years the computing industry has developed Unicode and it currently contains
more than 135 000 entries. This book would like to encourage the curious reader to take a
stroll through Unicode to meet many characters that will delight the eye and researching
their history to gain some fascinating insights.
