One Two Three... Infinity

One Two Three ... Infinity by George Gamow, was a book Dedicated to his son, Igor Gamow, it remains one of the most well received ever in the popular science genre.

Beginning with an exploration of elementary number concepts, it leads with the "Hottentots" (Khoikhoi), said to have words only for "one", "two", "three", and "many", and builds quickly to explore "many" in the form of a simple printing press that can (given enough paper, ink, and time — ) print all the English works that have ever been, or ever will be, printed. (It notes that if all the atoms in the Universe, as known in Gamow's time, were such printing presses working in parallel "at the speed of atomic vibrations" since the beginning of time, only an infinitesimal fraction of the job could have yet been completed.) It then winds from mathematics to biology, to physics, crystallography, and more.