2010	- are you ready for it?
666	- lots of theories behind this one
49%	- just not quite enough

These figures could refer to just about anything, but chances are you made the connection immediately. Because they refer to far more than a number or a proportion, they have meaning. Or, in other words, they are backed by strong emotion.

Maths is a product of human evolution. Nowadays, the study of learning and thinking does not see mathematics as something ‘out there’ and waiting to be discovered. Psychologists, anthropologists, linguists and mathematicians now largely agree that mathematics is something that evolved as our hominid ancestors came to develop a means of comprehending and communicating collections of objects (stones, prey animals, enemies) and when the notation of one, two, three and many was no longer accurate enough to be able to fashion an appropriate response. It is also true that whatever the apemen were counting, was probably also a highly emotional and immediately relevant stimulus: whether it was two wives, five enemies or ten wild horses, they required an immediate response.

Mathematics is inherently intuitive. What this is leading to, is that mathematics did not have its origin in the cool and intellectual ‘grey matter’ right at the very top of the brain. Granted, modern day mathematics relies heavily on distributed networks (serial and parallel) that connect nerve centres with each other and with the lower brain. For all that, the ‘higher’ and most evolved external layers of the brain cannot handle mathematics without the ‘intuitive’ and emotional input from beneath. Imagine trying to solve any sort of mathematics problem without a visual image of any sort whatsoever, even if it is only numbers chalked on a board. If you are not yet convinced, try solving any sort of mathematical word sum without resorting to forming a mental picture of the problem and plotting it out in your mind. It is the so-called lower centres surrounding the amygdala that, so to speak, put the pieces on the board for the grey matter to play with.

Maths fear disrupts mathematical intuition. Maths fear that is the most dramatic illustration of how intuitive mathematics really is. Actually in biological terms, maths fear is exactly the same as any other sort of fear, except that we become fearful in a given situation. It is well known, for example, that when people are highly upset, they ‘see’ the world differently – one of the reasons that eyewitness testimony doesn’t always hold up in court. It is the same with mathematics, because the parts of the brain that govern concentration, memory, perception and even motivation, are the first to suffer when the fear hormones start pumping. In other words, all the brain’s available resources are turned towards attending to the fear, instead of dealing with the mathematics you have set out to do.

What really happens when you do a calculation, is that the ‘intuitive’ or ‘protonumeric’ part of the brain races ahead of the actual numbers, and sort of makes a quantum leap to arrive at a very rough estimate of what the answer should look like. To some extent, one could say that it maps the calculation out on a mental number line, and when your formal calculation arrives at the same point, you know that it ‘feels’ right. In fact, world-famous mathematicians have confirmed that they do not as such remember processing numbers or even seeing pictures of digits, but that their closest description of their insights is that of a two- or three-dimensional movement or pattern. It is not the solving of the problem that is the headache: it is the capturing of this thinking into words and symbols that other lesser beings can understand.

Maths Achievement leads to Enhanced Self-esteem. We often tend to forget that there are also many positive emotions that can be coupled to maths. Pride at one’s achievement, praise for a particularly neat solution to a problem, or even an appreciation of truly beautiful patterns found repeated even in Nature are all emotions that are completely independent of the actual values of the numbers used to produce them. Moreover, being willing to face down one’s fear and persist in getting to grips with mathematics itself, is the most character-building exercise I can think of offhand. The payoff in emotional growth is enormous: learning the value of perseverance, individual effort and putting the distractions of today to reap the reward in days to come. Mathematics and emotion are both products of a human mind and a human brain, and appropriate investment in the one can only but enhance the other.

Copyright: Please note that copyright subsists on the "Emotional Mathematician" theory and that any references to this theory must be acknowledged. If it can be shown that the author has suffered loss of business or other damages due to the unauthorised use of the "Emotional Mathematician" theory, civil proceedings will be instituted.

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." - Thomas Jefferson