From: Claire (for Teacher2Teacher Service)
Date: Dec 28, 2005 at 15:38:21
Subject: Re: Math as language

Hi, Randall --

Thanks for writing to T2T. One book comes to mind: "Where Mathematics Comes
From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being" by George Lakoff
and Rafael E. Núñez. I can't claim to have read more than a few parts of it,
but you can read a review (and the authors' response) at
http://www.maa.org/reviews/wheremath.html. It's a very academic treatment
written by a linguist and a cognitive psychologist. If you Google the title,
you'll find more reviews that will let you know if the book would answer your
questions.

More accessible are a couple of books by Keith Devlin: "The Math Gene: How
Mathematical Thinking Evolved & Why Numbers Are Like Gossip" and "The Math
Instinct: Why You're a Mathematical Genius (Along with Lobsters, Birds, Cats,
and Dogs)". You can Google and "Amazon" for reviews of them as well. They're
both reviewed at http://www.maa.org.

 -Claire, for the T2T service

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