Even, and perhaps especially for a math-challenged person this is a fascinating, inspiring book. It will change and open the way you see the world around you. Here's an excerpt from the introduction:
"One sun, two parents, three meals a day, four seasons and five fingers: children soon discover that most things in life exist in a particular number - which is more than just a sum total but actually expresses something, some quality of the thing in question. Thus the one sun shines on each of us, assuring us that we live in one world, a whole, a unity in which it shines. Two people lead us into life and two is visible everywhere: in above and below, good and bad, forwards and backwards, sleeping and waking, light and darkness, and even freedom and compulsion.
From the seven dwarves and the same number of notes in a scale, or the 23 chromosomes, through the 32 types of crystal in mineralogy to the 153 fishes which the disciples of the New Testament haul ashore from the Sea of Galilee, numbers in nature, culture and religion tell us something about how things are constituted, about the inner workings of the world. Yet ever since numbers came to designate a time of day, a distance in miles, or have been found on bank statements and price labels, Plato's phrase about the world conceived in the language of mathematics has acquired a different resonance than intended by the Greek philosopher."
------from the introduction to The Quality of Numbers 1 to 31by Wolfgang Held
