Prof. Dor Abrahamson: Learning Is in the Body: How Movement Shapes the Mathematical Mind | EPS 020

For centuries, mathematics has been understood as the paradigm case of abstract, disembodied thought. Numbers, equations, and geometric proofs seem to exist in a realm entirely separate from the physical world of bodies, movement, and sensation. And our classrooms reflect this assumption: students sit still, look at symbols on a page or screen, and are asked to manipulate abstractions in their heads.

But what if this picture is not just incomplete, but fundamentally mistaken? What if mathematical understanding is not abstract at all, but is deeply, irreducibly rooted in physical experience, bodily movement, and gesture? And what would it mean for how we teach, design classrooms, and understand intelligence and ability if this turned out to be true?