The New York Times ran this article today about the relationship between humans’ intuitive approximate number system that is shared with many other animals and the concocted symbolic number system that we often regard as “math”. Unsurprisingly, the two seem to be related. From the article:
“What’s interesting and surprising in our results is that the same system we spend years trying to acquire in school, and that we use to send a man to the moon, and that has inspired the likes of Plato, Einstein and Stephen Hawking, has something in common with what a rat is doing when it’s out hunting for food,” [Justin Halberda] said. “I find that deeply moving.”
Behind every great leap of our computational mind lies the pitter-patter of rats’ feet, the little squeak of rodent kind.
My hope is that math educators can harness this relationship in a meaningful way in the future. The article also has a version of the test used in one of the cited studies here. See what your high score is!
The Future of Math Education?
The New York Times ran this article today about the relationship between humans’ intuitive approximate number system that is shared with many other animals and the concocted symbolic number system that we often regard as “math”. Unsurprisingly, the two seem to be related. From the article:
My hope is that math educators can harness this relationship in a meaningful way in the future. The article also has a version of the test used in one of the cited studies here. See what your high score is!