Category: Mathematics
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Intuitionism (Constructivism) vs. Logicism vs. Platonism.
Does infinity exist? Is the whole larger than the parts? Are all the numbers either negative, positive or zero? Phenomenally simple questions. With no definite answer! Is everything “out there” for us to discover? (Platonism) Is everything we can “write on paper” true? (Logicism) Or only the things we can construct do exist? (Intuitionism/ Constructivism)…
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Counting as an animal: Do you still think Math is our greatest achievement? Ask the chicken. (and then eat it)
Studies show the origin of the ability to understand the notion of numbers is something we share with the animals. It is true that many nonhuman animals can manage almost-math without numbers. Reports of a quantity-related ability come from chickens, horses, dogs, honeybees, spiders, salamanders, guppies, chimps, macaques, bears, lions, carrion crows and many more.…
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The truth. NOT as 1+1=2… [Pythagoras, Hippasus, Silence]
Physicists avoid highly mathematical work despite being trained in advanced mathematics, new research suggests. The study, published in the New Journal of Physics, shows that physicists pay less attention to theories that are crammed with mathematical details. This suggests there are real and widespread barriers to communicating mathematical work, and that this is not because…
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Remembering rules. Math. Blind cosmos… [Against mathematical operations?!]
Children differ substantially in their mathematical abilities. In fact, some children cannot routinely add or subtract, even after extensive schooling. This new paper proposes that math disability arises from abnormalities in brain areas supporting procedural memory. Procedural memory is a learning and memory system that is crucial for the automation of non-conscious skills, such as…
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Counting parts. Seeing the whole. Small prejudices… [Against numbers?!]
We can assume that children learn to count starting with one and followed by the lists of numbers in ascending order of cardinality (one, two, three). But besides numbers, in languages there are more words that express quantity such as all, some, most, none, etc., the so-called quantifiers. A recent study into childhood language in…
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