Sleeping Beauties: the Mystery of Dormant Innovations in Nature and Culture by Andreas Wagner

Author:Andreas Wagner
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780861545285
Publisher: Oneworld Publications

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Numbering neurons

AMONG ALL FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN ABILITIES that underlie our civilisation, mathematics stands out. From its humble origins in Mesopotamian trade and taxation, it became the foundation of modern technology. And more than that, it helped formulate laws of nature that reach all the way down to the structure of subatomic particles, all the way up to the cosmos, and all the way back to the first days of the universe. Mathematics reveals principles that hold not just on our planet, but on any planet in our galaxy – or in any galaxy.

Little surprise then that scientists are wondering where maths comes from. And they find that maths builds on an ancient talent that has been slumbering for most of humanity’s history. Like the aptitude of animals to discover new tools, this talent has been shaped in eons of Darwinian evolution. However, we know much more about its origins than we know about animal tool skills. For example, we know the neural circuits behind it. They teach us that even the most transformative innovations of our culture may have to lie in wait for thousands of years until their time arrives.

To find the source of our mathematical skills, psychologists love to study infants. The reason is that infants are still untouched by maths education. But experiments with infants pose a challenge, because an infant cannot tell you what it thinks or feels. Fortunately, a workaround exists for this problem. It uses the fact that an infant looks longer at a scene when she is surprised by unexpected events, like a ball suspended in mid-air or a puppet that suddenly disappears. Events like these violate basic laws of physics that even infants understand. And psychological experiments can build on this understanding.

In one such experiment an infant sits in front of a puppet stage. A hand enters the stage from a side-door, places a toy mouse on the stage and withdraws. Then a screen is raised on the stage to hide the mouse. After that, the hand reappears with another mouse, reaches behind the screen, places the mouse next to the first one and withdraws again, empty. Now two mice are on the stage, but both are behind the screen, hidden from the infant.

Infants may not be able to speak, but they are smart. They know to expect two mice behind the screen. But then the experimenter surreptitiously removes the second mouse through a trap door. And so, when the screen is removed, only one mouse is visible. When that happens, the infant is puzzled – it looks much longer at the stage than when two mice are visible. One mouse plus one mouse should equal two mice, so the infant knows something is off.

In an even simpler experiment, a psychologist places two small, opaque buckets next to an infant sitting on the floor. The buckets are far enough away that the infant cannot reach both at the same time. While the infant watches, the experimenter drops one graham cracker into the first bucket, and two crackers into the second bucket.

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