Ian Stewart is Professor of Mathematics at Warwick University, and Director of the Mathematics Awareness Centre at Warwick. An active research mathematician, he is also a well-known popularizer of mathematics and related areas of science. In 1995 he was awarded the Royal Society's Michael Faraday Award for furthering the public understanding of science; his book 'Nature's Numbers' was shortlisted for the 1996 Rhone-Poulenc Prize for Science Books; and he delivered the 1997 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, televised by the BBC. In 2001 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.