Artificial intelligence researchers at RPI want to do things like improve Watson's mathematical ability and help it quickly figure out the meaning of new or made-up words.

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Darwin had little or no mathematical ability, but with the masses of information he had accumulated, he was able to conceive a process to which mathematics was later applied.

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People who were asked to reflect on their many past successes or a specific failure scored roughly 10% better on tests of mathematical ability, as well as verbal, spatial, and abstract reasoning, than those who reflected on either many past failures or a single specific success.

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The studies together indicate that math ability is inborn in many species, with number sense, mathematical skills and verbal ability perhaps being separate talents in humans that we later learn to combine.

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At its heart, a credit score is nothing but a mathematical prediction of your ability to pay your debts.

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By lining up thousands of these bits, a computer can perform complicated mathematical calculations, and even use that ability to do tasks like downloading a Web page and displaying it on a screen.

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But teaching unions argued banning calculator use in the tests would risk pupils' ability to use them to tackle more complex mathematical problems.

BBC: Government bans calculators from primary maths tests

This ability would allow a quantum computer to do the mathematical heavy-lifting required for, say, cracking secret codes, while even the fastest and most advanced supercomputers plod along on the same problem.

FORBES: Atoms Offer Giant Leap In Computing Power

What is certain, however, is that a strong understanding, ability and passion for math is needed and that these mathematical skills are very much in demand.

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