MALTA • As 25 fifth-graders bent over their papers, trying to solve a story problem, visitor Rhonda Birnie strolled the aisle, glancing at their work. “I like the way you’re thinking,” Birnie said, ...

Math teacher Samantha McGlennen wandered around her Summit Middle School classroom, unfazed by the students’ chatter and laughter during a recent lesson about exponential growth. Their behavior – ...

David Bessis was drawn to mathematics for the same reason that many people are driven away: He didn’t understand how it worked. Unlike other creative processes, like making music, which can be heard, ...

Humans are born to do math, and they have the brain infrastructure to prove it—including a cluster of specialized nerve cells for processing numbers. Despite this dedicated cluster, mathematical ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. David Bessis was drawn to mathematics for the same reason that many people are driven away: He didn’t understand how it worked. Unlike ...

Helena Osana receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Concordia University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation CA. Universitié ...