Without Learning The Geometry Of A Journalist

Although many young people of school going along, a new study finds that the geometry is intuitive to a person who is easy to understand, even without formal training.

The investigators asked questions in Euclidean geometry Planar adults and children Mundurucú community, isolated from a group of indigenous Amazon. Although there is no formal training, Mundurucú were able to quickly understand the concepts of plane geometry of points, lines and triangles.

Research shows ongoing proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mundurucú were able to correctly answer questions like: "Can a coach be a cross-looking, two parallel lines?" And "Can a coach than a player two parallel lines, but not the other?"

Its capacity is actually similar to that of adult Americans and French children who have received formal training in geometry, "said Veronique Izard, a psychologist at the campus of the University of Paris Descartes and first author of the study. The children had the same Mundurucus age children - 7 to 13.

"I would say that means that Euclidean geometry is probably universal to all human beings," he said. "We found that people understand the concepts of geometry beyond the visible."

It remains to understand why this is so, "he said.

Curiously, when the same test was performed on young children aged 5 and 6 Americans, they fared poorly.

This means that if the capacity to understand the flat geometry is innate, it just appears again and again.

"Maybe it's something that is learned from the environment, but in this case must be something generic to all environments, Dr. Izard said.

He and his colleagues continue to investigate the matter.