Decades after struggling to understand math as a boy, Alec Wilkinson decides to embark on a journey to learn it as a middle-aged man. What begins as a personal challenge-and it is challenging-soon transforms into something greater than a belabored effort to learn math. Despite his incompetence, Wilkinson encounters a universe of unexpected questions in his pursuit of mathematical knowledge and quickly becomes fascinated; soon, his exercise in personal growth (and torture) morphs into an intellectually expansive exploration. In A Divine Language, Wilkinson, a contributor to The New Yorker for more than forty years, journeys into the heart of the divine aspects of mathematics-its mysteries, difficulties, and revelations-from antiquity to the present. Part memoir, part metaphysical travel book, and part journey in self-improvement, A Divine Language is one man's second attempt at understanding the numbers in front of him and the world beyond.