I firmly believe that mathematics does not exist outside of humans. It is something we, as a species, invent.

I saw the first one [video with Hans Rosling ] when he did - I think it was his first one - in 2006, a TED Talk. And for the first time in my life, I thought here's someone who can take statistics that most people regard as dull and boring and bring it alive.

In fact, when you try to use [Hans Rosling] data to predict the future, all sorts of problems arise. But what it does do is say, hey, just catch your breath a minute and see what's really been going on. We do have reason to feel good about the fact we've made progress.

A PhD in Mathematics is three years of guessing it wrong, plus one week of getting it right and writing a dissertation.

I firmly believe that mathematics does not exist outside of humans. It is something we, as a species, invent.

Mathematical thinking is not the same as doing mathematics - at least not as mathematics is typically presented in our school system. School math typically focuses on learning procedures to solve highly stereotyped problems. Professional mathematicians think a certain way to solve real problems, problems that can arise from the everyday world, or from science, or from within mathematics itself. The key to success in school math is to learn to think inside-the-box. In contrast, a key feature of mathematical thinking is thinking outside-the-box - a valuable ability in today's world.

What makes it possible to learn advanced math fairly quickly is that the human brain is capable of learning to follow a given set of rules without understanding them, and apply them in an intelligent and useful fashion. Given sufficient practice, the brain eventually discovers (or creates) meaning in what began as a meaningless game.