The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved And Why Numbers Are Like Gossip - Softcover

Devlin, Keith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465016197 ISBN 13: 9780465016198

Publisher: Basic Books, 2001

Synopsis

If people are endowed with a "number instinct" similar to the "language instinct" -- as recent research suggests -- then why can't everyone do math? In The Math Gene, mathematician and popular writer Keith Devlin attacks both sides of this question. Devlin offers a breathtakingly new theory of language development that describes how language evolved in two stages and how its main purpose was not communication. Devlin goes on to show that the ability to think mathematically arose out of the same symbol-manipulating ability that was so crucial to the very first emergence of true language. Why, then, can't we do math as well as we speak? The answer, says Devlin, is that we can and do -- we just don't recognize when we're using mathematical reasoning.

About this title

About the Author

Keith Devlin is a Senior Researcher and Executive Director at Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information, a Consulting Professor in the Department of Mathematics, and a co-founder of the Stanford Media X research network. National Public Radio's "Math Guy," he is the author of over twenty-five books. He lives in Stanford, California.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465016197
• ISBN 13: 9780465016198
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352