The Math Gene - by Keith Devlin (Paperback)

About the Book

Why is math so hard? And why are some people so good at it? Keith Devlin has answers to these questions, and shows how mathematical ability evolved, why it's a part of language ability, and how readers can make better use of this innate talent.

Book Synopsis

Why is math so hard? And why, despite this difficulty, are some people so good at it? If there's some inborn capacity for mathematical thinking--which there must be, otherwise no one could do it --why can't we all do it well? Keith Devlin has answers to all these difficult questions, and in giving them shows us how mathematical ability evolved, why it's a part of language ability, and how we can make better use of this innate talent.He also offers a breathtakingly new theory of language development--that language evolved in two stages, and its main purpose was not communication--to show that the ability to think mathematically arose out of the same symbol-manipulating ability that was so crucial to the emergence of true language. Why, then, can't we do math as well as we can 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 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.