Terence Tao

We have a vision center and a language center and some other centers which evolution has honed, but we don't have an innate sense of mathematics.

But our other centers are sophisticated enough that we can repurpose other areas of our brain to do mathematics.

So some people have figured out how to use the visual center to do mathematics, and so they think very visually when they do mathematics.

Some people have repurposed their language center, and they think very symbolically.

Some people, if they are very competitive and they like gaming, there's a part of your brain that's very good at solving puzzles and games, and that can be repurposed.

When I talk to other mathematicians, I can tell that they're using some other different styles of thinking than I am.

I mean, not disjoint, but they may prefer visual.

I don't actually prefer visual so much.

I need also visual aids myself.

Mathematics provides a common language, so we can still talk to each other even if we are thinking in different ways.

But you can tell there's a difference...

set of subsystems being used in the thinking process.

They take different paths.

They're very quick at things that I struggle with and vice versa.

And yet they still get to the same goal.

That's beautiful.

And yeah, but I mean, the way we educate, unless you have like a personalized tutor or something, I mean, education sort of just by initial scale has to be mass produced.

You know, you have to teach the 30 kids, you know, they have 30 different styles.

You can't, you can't teach 30 different ways.

Yeah, it's a tricky problem.