[fouc]

GP is making a reference to the fact that Chinese students were found able to hold 2 more digits in memory than American or Japanese students. The theory is that everyone has a certain amount of short-term verbal memory, and using really short pronunciation for numbers means you can cram in extra digits into that verbal memory.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010027786...

[agumonkey]

And I strongly believe that, as much as tapping into neurological structures is beneficial and important, mathematics is mostly about overcoming them and thinking in the large.

If I could explain that, I don't feel my brain is stronger now that I know about combinatorics over program spaces / trees compared to me a 6. It's just how things are approached that changes everything.