As the semanticist S.I. Hayakawa stressed in his classic book Language in Thought and Action, words are not the things they represent. Words are symbols. It’s the manipulation of those symbols that ...

It’s a complaint many algebra teachers are familiar with, as more letters and symbols are introduced with progressively harder courses in mathematics. But why did the plus symbol emerge as the ...

Galileo once famously described the universe as a great book “written in mathematical language and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures.” Unfortunately, it’s a language ...

Mastering mathematical symbols is essential for success in various fields, from science to technology. The article breaks down fundamental symbols like arithmetic operations, comparisons, variables, ...

What allows humans to infer “a notion of structure” (Otto Jespersen) when using language, art, music, and mathematics? All of these domains have their own unique representational units (words, notes), ...