The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved and Why Numbers Are Like Gossip

Devlin, Keith

ISBN 10: 0465016189 / ISBN 13: 9780465016181

Published by Basic Books, 2000

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 0465016189-3-35151645

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved and Why Numbers Are Like Gossip
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465016189
• ISBN 13: 9780465016181
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: Good
• Weight: 23 ounces

About this title

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 the Author

Keith Devlin is the Dean of the School of Science at St. Mary's College, Moraga, California, and a Senior Researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University. He is the author of 22 books, one interactive CD-ROM, and over 65 technical research papers in mathematics. His voice is heard regularly on National Public Radio, on such programs as "Weekend Edition," "Talk of the Nation," "Science Friday," "Sounds Like Science," and "To the Best of Our Knowledge." His previous books include Life by the Numbers, the companion to a PBS series that aired in April and May, 1998; Goodbye Descartes: The End of Logic; and The Language of Mathematics: Making the Invisible Visible.