The approximations used in estimating numbers are compounded when calculations are done with those numbers. For instance, if we know that a = 5.2 to one decimal place and b = 1.3 to one decimal place, then the range for the sum c=a+b can be from 5.15+1.25 through to 5.25+1.35, i.e. 6.4 ⩽ c <…

Let me start by making clear that I am not a neuroscientist. Nor a psychologist.  I am a mathematics teacher whose formal studies of psychology, excluding a short paper on motivation during my PGCE year, don’t extend beyond A-level.   Nevertheless as a teacher, I maintain a keen interest in the findings from psychology that…

Why ‘driven’, ‘ambitious’ and ‘self-motivated’ are now chauvinistic words Besides the famous ‘electric shock’ experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram in the 1970s, were the equally controversial findings on conformity by Solomon Asch.  In a nutshell, these involved a group of participants judging the length of a straight line projected on a screen.  One of the…

#ED0000 Several years ago, in Portland, Oregon, I had my first encounter with ‘drum circles’.  These are semi-spontaneous gatherings where people drum together in parks and such-like.  They taught me something about the art of conversation.  Namely that when you enter a drum circle as a stranger, there are certain patterns of behaviour which can…