Can you learn to be good at math or are you just born with it ?

[x→∞]

I wonder if math and "language" are related in some way... it seems to me there is a similar process, that one just seems to get more comfortable and overtime you just "understand it" much like becoming fluent in a language...

They are related, like anything else you learn. Your mother language, the one you speak best, is usually the one you learn and hear from the very beginning of your life. Same with mathematics, you begin understanding it little by little from a very young age.

 

[cristo]

Hmm...how do you define properly?

In the sense I used it there, I would define "properly" as not cramming the night before an exam, but studying and revising for courses in the weeks preceding an exam. If it's true that "most" people cram and only study the day before exams where you are, then perhaps this a common trait in the US system. I can assure you, however, that this does not happen at the decent universities in the UK (which is where my personal experience comes from).

 

[symbolipoint]

bleedblue1234 was discussing a comparison between Mathematics and Language, and then:

They are related, like anything else you learn. Your mother language, the one you speak best, is usually the one you learn and hear from the very beginning of your life. Same with mathematics, you begin understanding it little by little from a very young age.

Not exactly. A student may struggle with several topics related to fractions for many years, and then while studying "Algebra 1", suddenly all of the Properties of Real Numbers may eliminate most of the previous confusion. MAYBE this is because some students are extremely slow to find the generalizations until someone directly teaches those generalizations.

 

[chiro]

bleedblue1234 was discussing a comparison between Mathematics and Language, and then:



Not exactly. A student may struggle with several topics related to fractions for many years, and then while studying "Algebra 1", suddenly all of the Properties of Real Numbers may eliminate most of the previous confusion. MAYBE this is because some students are extremely slow to find the generalizations until someone directly teaches those generalizations.

I think you hit a nail right on someones head there. Ones ability to generalize as far as one can possibly go helps one be able to see how things are really part of just one big idea. I think that as far as human knowledge goes, that is extremely important. For example you could have the idea that the entire world is decomposed into finite elements of matter. Whether or not that is true, it reflects some level of generalization and thus our understanding of a particular set and subsets of some category.

And we all do it naturally as mathematicians. We stereotype, we generalize everything as far as we can mentally do so (even with physical forces) so it seems to be a normal integral part of human behaviour which might say something about the nature of beings but that's another story altogether.

 

[Mosis]

No one thinks we are a little bit too old for the "all men are created equal" argument? It was nice back in middle school, but now it only sounds funny. Seriously, how exactly can such thing be made possible?

People just delude themselves that there is no such thing as innate talent. While in most cases, motivation and hard work contribute significantly to success, motivation and hard work can only carry one through so much (99% of success or so they claim lol). The last 1% of innate talent is what breaks the tie. Otherwise, the world is already flooded with geniuses.

The world IS flooded with geniuses. There are tons of "highly-talented" losers bumming about, but without the discipline, organization and hard work required to excel in anything, these people don't.

 

[Bourbaki1123]

If you were to put any stock in i.q., which is a reasonably decent indicator of academic success at least, then there should be about half a billion people who could become fairly competent scientists(assuming an i.q. of 120 ish would suffice, which has some backing). I don't know how many geniuses that makes...

Not taking stock in i.q., and there being no truly accurate measurement of potential intellectual accomplishment, I would say that there is no way to tell how many genius potential people there are in the world.

 

[cshum00]

There might be some inborn mental wiring that helps for the development of math but even without it; humans still can develop those skills.

One note about IQ tests is that those test have some kind of pattern too. By just taking a lot of those IQ tests, you will eventually score higher and higher. I remember that i repetively took certain IQ tests and started to score from 80 all the way to 130 or so.

 

[aneesh.mulye]

I still stand by the point that there is nothing innate. And those who say that there is, they just don't try hard. Its a lame excuse of saying can't do, ain't born with it. Totally lame.

A trivial counterexample - could a cow do calculus?

If your theory is correct, a cow should be able to, as the difference between humans and cows is only in what is "innate" - the genetic code.

Take an example which is less extreme - chimpanzees. We share 98% of our genes with them. Could they do calculus?

If you concede the point that they cannot, then you have to also concede that a 2% difference in genes - an innate difference - can have consequences for mathematical ability.

This presupposes the concession that a genetic difference can have consequences for mathematical ability.

Once this philosophical point is conceded, and the fact that humans differ genetically acknowledged, I don't think the statement in the above quotation is defensible any longer.

Anyone can run as fast as usain bolt, if he practices as much as he do, or even more. It is another thing that most of us can't practice as hard as he does.

Can anyone run as fast as a cheetah?

You will try to say that the examples I'm giving here are not relevant, as they refer to different species. The problem is that philosophically and scientifically, all life on Earth is a ring species, whose separation is spatio-temporal instead of merely spatial, as the traditional definition of ring species would have it.

@OP, relax & try a bit more, you will be up & running in no time

This part I agree with. As long as the person in the OP does not have any learning disability of any sort, the standard levels of university achievement are within his grasp.

 

[Jammin_James]

I'm sure cows can do calculus; the ones with the innate ability, that is! Those dumb cows can get back to eating their grass.

 

[Troponin]

Anyone can run as fast as usain bolt, if he practices as much as he do, or even more. It is another thing that most of us can't practice as hard as he does.

This is true. The other Olympic athletes don't feel like training enough to run faster. Usain can actually run much faster as well, he just doesn't want to train more or harder.

I started to run faster than Usain Bolt last week but didn't want to practice anymore because I wanted to be a better basketball player than Lebron James. My brother is going to be a better Mathematician than Euler. I would do that too, but I don't feel like practicing as much as him.

 

[aneesh.mulye]

Why not? If 100% of the brain's moulding happened after birth, then one could draw conclusions that it is not genetic. But the article you quote does not say that.

Even if it were 100% after birth, it could still be completely genetically controlled. After all, puberty hits after birth, but it's timing is still decided by genes.

 

[mbisCool]

While I do not believe that innate ability is everything or even the most vital for learning in general, it seems apparent that certain individuals have to work harder than others to achieve an equal level of understanding. Often this can be attributed to lack of previous exposure or motivation but it seems naiive to think individual understanding will be exactly equal with equal amounts of work.

 

[j93]

This shouldn't be in this forum but the general like the job talk.