Educ Stud Math (2015) 88:159162

DOI 10.1007/s10649-014-9579-6

How humans learn to think mathematically: Exploring

the three worlds of mathematics, by David Tall. (2013)
Cambridge University Press. 484 pages. Paperback: ISBN:
9781107668546 [$39.99 US], eBook Reader: ISBN: 9781107496835
[$32 US]. Hardback: ISBN: 9781107035706 [$99 US]
William Byers

Published online: 14 October 2014

# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract This is a fascinating and important book that should be read by anyone who is
interested in mathematics and mathematics education.
Keywords Mathematics education . Teaching and learning mathematics
This is a fascinating and important book that should be read by anyone who is interested in
mathematics and mathematics education. One of its striking and unusual features is its range.
David Tall is a unique figure. Who else has two doctorates under such eminent figures as Michael
Atiyah, in pure mathematics, and Richard Skemp, in mathematics education? Perhaps, for that
reason, Talls interests are very broad. He is interested in all of mathematics and in anyone, from the
very young child to the most mature research mathematician, who does mathematics. It is rare to
read a book with such scope and ambition; one that attempts to deal with the enormous extent of
mathematics and that combines teaching and learning with historical development and research. In
this book, one feels that Tall distills and passes on the lessons he has learned from a lifetime in
mathematics. One can quibble with the details but not with the orientation.
One is reminded that the division of mathematics into education and research is ultimately
artificial. Learning mathematics is a form of doing mathematics; doing mathematicsmathematical researchis a form of learning. It is all mathematizing, to use David Wheelers term,
and David Tall is an excellent guide to the process. Thus, I begin my review with the nontrivial observation that such a book is even possiblethat it is possible to talk coherently about
all of mathematics. Behind the key ideas around which Tall orients his bookcrystalline
concepts and the three worlds of mathematicslies the conviction that it is possible to talk
about mathematics as a whole, that the processes that are occurring at different levels share
certain features. In this way, the book is a meditation on the nature of mathematics. The
philosophical question, What is mathematics? is never made explicit, but sits there just under
the surface.
W. Byers (*)
Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada
e-mail: wpbyers@gmail.com

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W. Byers

Before I go any further, I must say what I intend to do with this review. I am not a mathematics
educator and so I cannot claim to place Talls work within the edifice of mathematics education. I
am a mathematician who has thought and written about the nature of mathematics, and so the best
I can do is to react to the ideas that I discovered in the book. Thus, this review will involve
isolating what struck me as key ideas and making my comments on them.

1 Concepts
What is a concept in mathematics? For most mathematicians, mathematics only starts when
concepts are given a formal definition. How then are we to account for the evolution of
concepts, both for the individual who is learning the subject and in the history of the
mathematics? Is number or randomness a concept? If so, what are their definitions? In
fact, many objects of study in mathematics are never defined or, at least, are not pinned down
completely by their formal definitions. The developmental psychologists have shown us that
concepts need not be formally defined; core concepts (the cognitive structures for number,
say, that we are born with) certainly dont need words. Thus, there is a narrow way to think
about concepts (via the formal definition) and a much better and more expansive way, for
example, concept image of Tall and Vinner (1981). In this book, Tall emphasizes the
complexity of concept by employing the evocative term, crystalline concept. Why link the
two words crystalline and concept? The key thing about a crystal is that it has a great many
faces and so there are a great many ways to think about a crystalline concept. All important
mathematical concepts are crystallineif they were not multi-faceted in this way, they
wouldnt be important. Even the simplest ideas, like multiplication, for example, unite a vast
array of different mathematical contexts around a common theme. A key thing about a
crystalline concept is that it is not static; it always has the potential for growth and change.
When it is developing, changing, and growing, it is alive. The concepts of number,
continuity, or differentiability can always extend to new situations. There is always the
potential for growth and development.
Calling a concept crystalline reminds us that a concept must be crystallizedit must be
grasped in a moment of insight. It is not an objective and formal object so much as a process
that involves a creative act of understanding, whether by an individual or by the community of
mathematicians.

2 Procept
The word procept refers to a blending of process and concept which often involves using some
symbolic representation in an ambiguous way, such as when 3 is used to refer to
subtraction but also to the negative number. This is a notion that appeared in an important
paper by Gray and Tall (1994) and has strong similarities to the use of encapsulaton by
researchers like Ed Dubinsky (c.f. Tall pp. 6166) and reification by Anna Sfard (1994). The
ubiquity of such situations in mathematics at all levels reminds us of the importance of the
systematic use of constructive ambiguity in mathematics. However, ambiguity of any sort does
not seem to be part of formal mathematics. In fact, the prevailing philosophy of mathematics
renders it almost invisible, but it is there. As a consequence of the instinctive rejection of the
ambiguous, most people miss a great deal when they talk and think about mathematics.
Importantly, the ambiguous aspects of mathematics help to explain some of its most striking
features, such as its capacity to compress knowledge. (For more on this, see Byers, 2007.) This

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in turn accounts for the incredible complexity of mathematics and goes a long way towards
explaining the depth and richness of mathematical concepts, which Tall brings to the fore with
the phrase crystalline concept. This richness is not carried by the logical structure of
mathematics. The richness of a crystalline concept arises from the number of different contexts
within which it can be embedded. Understanding and working with a crystalline concept
necessitates the mental flexibility that comes from seeing the unity behind the multiple
representations.
An ambiguous mathematical idea, like a process that morphs into a thinkable object, not
only gives a necessary flexibility to mathematical thinking. It also brings out the role of the
problematic in learning and doing mathematics. Tall emphasizes the importance of the
problematic throughout the book, as illustrated by the following quotations:
1. A sensible approach to learning requires not only the building towards powerful ideas
that will be encountered in the future but also addressing the problematic issues in the
present that may have long-term consequences. (p. 116)
2. This is the main thrust of the argument in this book: that problematic met-befores cause
negative emotional reactions that impede learning. (p. 126)
Tall also emphasizes the importance of the problematic when he discusses the value of
getting stuck in the process of problem solving (p. 181).
The history of mathematics and of learning mathematics is one of meeting and overcoming
obstacles. Why else would we have the negative, irrational, and imaginary numbers? In
other words, the development of mathematics is driven by the problematic. The problematic is
not an accident or a failure; it is a necessary developmental stage. We arrive at mathematical
understanding by going through the problematic. It is therefore not something to repress but
something to value. All of mathematical development ultimately depends on having the right
attitude towards the problematic. Thus, mathematical development is necessarily discontinuous and challenging and occurs through a series of insights, as opposed to the continuous,
linear process that characterizes the presentation of a formal proof. (This point of view is
explored in Byers, 2014).

3 Local straightness and the use of the computer

Another major idea of Talls that I want to mention is his notion of local straightness as a
way of teaching and learning the derivative. Calculus is in general very badly taught. Most
people agree that the approach is conceptually inaccessible for most students. This has
made Calculus into an impenetrable barrier for many students who might wish to proceed with
mathematics. The honest truth is that almost no one understands the standard approach at the
time that they are first exposed to it, and so there is a lot of faking it that goes on in the
classroom by teachers and students. Tall gives us a way out of this dilemmaan embodied
way of approaching the subject that is important and should be generally adopted. That is, he
recommends zooming in on a curve in a graph until the portion magnified looks like a straight
line in order to calculate the approximate rate of change in an approach that takes the students
cognitive development into account.
The discussion of the Calculus is not only important for people teaching the subject but also
for what it tells us about the development of mathematics and about the nature of mathematics.
We can read it as a case history of ongoing mathematical process. Mathematical process
consists, as Bill Thurston (1994) said, of people finding ways of thinking about mathematics.

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W. Byers

Crystalline concepts like the derivative can be thought of in various ways, but it is necessary to
have an entry point, and Tall proposes a very interesting way to think about the derivative. His
method of zooming in provides us with a constructive use of the computer as an aid to
conceptual development. You cannot do mathematics or learn mathematics without an embodied way of thinking about conceptssomething that is absent for many formal approaches.
The teacher may use such representations herself but she does not necessarily think it required
to share her way of thinking with her students. Local straightness has the potential to fill a huge
gap in the teaching of the calculus.

4 The three worlds of mathematics

The three worlds of mathematics referred to in the subtitle of the book are the practical or
embodied, the theoretical or symbolic, and the formal. The insight here is that it is important
and productive to come at mathematics from diverse perspectives and that these three
dimensions are present, or at least potentially present, in all mathematical situations. Indeed,
Tall shows us in great detail the value of approaching the teaching and learning of mathematics
from this perspective. Of course, mathematics is one unified subject. So, maybe, we should
think of mathematics itself as having a crystalline structure. The three worlds of mathematics
would be three ways of looking at mathematics in general and also something to be borne in
mind in every specific context. Thus, most mathematicsfor example, crystalline concepts
would encompass all three perspectives.
However, if we are not careful, we might look at these three worlds in a hierarchical way
with the embodied as the lowest and the formal as the highest. This would be an error.
Formal, rigorous mathematics is not better or truer than other informal approaches.
Formalism, logic, and proof form part of the arsenal of the mathematician as she solves
problems, tries to understand complex mathematical situations, and develops new ideas and
concepts. Equally critical is the set of informal representations that a mathematician carries
around. As Tall points out, the situation is more like a spiral with the formal theory looping
back into new embodied representations. The key questionthe one that turns mathematics
from being a boring package of information and techniques to a dynamic disciplineis very
simply, Do you get it? Learning mathematics is invariably a challenge that demands an
insightful response.
Thought provoking and stimulating, this book has the potential to initiate a much needed
discussion about teaching and learning and even about the nature of mathematics. Now, if we
can only get mathematicians to read it!

References
Byers, W. (2007). How mathematicians think: Using ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox to create mathematics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Byers, W. (2014). Deep thinking: What mathematics can tell us about the mind. Singapore: World Scientific.
Gray, E., & Tall, D. (1994). Duality, ambiguity and flexibility: A proceptual view of simple arithmetic. Journal
for Research in Mathematics Education, 25(2), 116140.
Sfard, A. (1994). Reification as a birth of a metaphor. For the Learning of Mathematics, 14(1), 4455.
Tall, D. O., & Vinner, S. (1981). Concept image and concept definition in mathematics, with special reference to
limits and continuity. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 12, 151169.
Thurston, W. (1994). On proof and progress in mathematics. Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society,
30(2), 161177.

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