Things I Like - Sciences

I love math. I'm not particularly good at it, but of all the sciences, math is the one I find most fascinating. Maybe that's because there doesn't seem to be as much chance involved in math the way there is with most other sciences. It always seemed that if you were smart enough, you could figure out the problem without having to wait for a fortuitous and/or unplanned event (i.e., the accidental discovery of penicillin).

And it turns out that math is a much more instinctive behavior than you might think. According to a recent article in the Economist,

"Within a limited range, humans are born arithmeticians... When babies a few months old were shown dolls placed and removed from behind a screen they had correct expectations of the number of dolls they would see when the curtain was drawn aside, and were surprised when trickery meant those expectations were violated."

Experiments have shown that babies less than 48 hours old are capable of distinguishing between cards having two vs. three dots, so this ability to understand math concepts is clearly not a learned skill. Quick quesiton here - what is with making babies do math??

On the flip side, scientists have also identified a rare condition in which the affected person has significant difficulty with math, well beyond the basic dislike that many (clearly confused) people experience when doing or thinking about math.

They've named this condition dyscalculia - as in dyslexia for math. But before you blame your inability to balance a checkbook on dyscalculia instead of admitting dislike of a tedious chore, keep in mind that the basic test for dyscalculia is abnormal slowness in counting a few dots on a page. If this isn't you, stop making excuses and take care of the checkbook.

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12847128