Who Can Name the Bigger Number? (1999)

https://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/bignumbers.html

6 points · 3 comments · view on lemmy.world

3 Comments

LetThereBeNick@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 117d

Brain-imaging evidence showed that the subjects’ parietal lobes, involved in spatial reasoning, were more active during approximation problems; while the left inferior frontal lobes, involved in verbal reasoning, were more active during exact calculation problems. Studies of patients with brain lesions paint the same picture: those with parietal lesions sometimes can’t decide whether 9 is closer to 10 or to 5, but remember the multiplication table; whereas those with left-hemispheric lesions sometimes can’t decide whether 2+2 is 3 or 4, but know that the answer is closer to 3 than to 9.

I wonder if, in the face of very large numbers, both these systems fail and we default to a social/emotional impression of "powerful/scary."

teft@piefed.social · 1 pts · 117d (1 reply)

I feel like either numberphile or Matt Parker covered this in a video because it seems familiar.

eah@programming.dev · 1 pts · 117d

There are many.