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Editorial
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For most everyday users, mathematics works well enough even if its nature is shrouded in mysteries that are for others to understand. For the clinical scientist, mathematics allows precise conclusions to be reached from fuzzy data—concepts through numbers. For the neurologist, mathematics provides striking examples of how the calculator can go wrong whilst leaving other parts of the cognitive machinery intact: Salomon Henschen (1847–1930) first described ‘acalculia’, concluding that a discrete system independent of the apparatus for orchestrating language and music is needed for calculation even though inability to calculate is often also associated with ‘acopia’ (the inability to copy, not to cope) and ‘number-blindness’. But what is mathematics? In ‘Thoughts of a Mathematician’ Michael Atiyah, reviewing The mathematician's brain by David Ruelle, How mathematicians think by William Byers and The mind of the mathematician by Michael Fitzgerald and Ioan James, explains all (page 1156).
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