Content about “
innate mathematical ability

News story

No need for words

Where does our ability to do abstract maths come from? A new study sheds some fascinating light on the question.
News story

The maths sense

You don't need to count to see that five apples are more than three oranges: you can tell just by looking. That's because you were born with a sense for number. But is that sense related to the mathematical abilities you develop later on?
News story

Gut logic

Human reasoning is biased and illogical. At least that's what a huge body of psychological research seems to show. But now a psychological scientist from the University of Toulouse in France has come up with a new theory: that logical and probabilistic thinking is an intuitive part of decision making, only its conclusions often lose out to heuristic considerations.
News story

Born to count?

People as well as animals are born with a sense for numbers. But is this inborn number sense related to mathematical ability? A new study suggests that it is.
Article

Evolutionary maths

How did we evolve our capacity for maths? Does maths piggy-back on our ability for language, or is it a completely separate faculty? Is it dependent on culture? Plus spoke to the cognitive psychologist Rosemary Varley to find some answers.
Article

Editorial

  • What is maths for? - What do we hope people will know after studying maths at school?
  • New Plus posters! - Find out how you can get hold of your own copy of our brilliant new poster!
  • Specially for students - This issue of Plus brings you the first of an occasional series expecially for use in the classroom.
Article

Editorial

  • Optional maths - should students be able to give up maths at age 14?
  • Outer space - In what will now be a regular feature, mathematician and cosmologist John D. Barrow shares some maths that's amused and intrigued him.
  • Readers' corner- More Strange activities for last issue's Ship of Fools!
Article

Editorial

  • Information overload - how mathematicians are helping us all to make sense of the vast amount of information now available to us
  • Sum problems - can you be good at mathematics without being good at arithmetic?
  • Readers' corner - Meet Mandy, the cuddly Mandelbrot set!
Article

Natural born mathematicians

Neuropsychologist Brian Butterworth tells us about research showing that even newborn babies have a basic understanding of number. It seems we are all mathematicians!