Can there be a eureka moment in maths (sorry numeracy) similar to the "I've got it" moment in reading (sorry literacy) ?

[indignatio]

The title really sums (sorry for the unintentional pun) up my question.

popsycal - I am very relieved that I attributed it !

bump for the early evening crowd as we seem to have gone off at a tangent

i suddenly 'got' pythagoras - whislt shitfaced years later.

What do you think to your original question, Indignatio?

Neice
I'm not sure - I'd read about children suddenly getting it with reading and sure enough this happened with ds about a year ago.
WRT maths, he has always been able to do the maths associated with his age group with no problems, but over the weekend he was making (what seemed to me - his own very biased mummy) really intuitive leaps in his understanding and therefore ability. He was not repeating just what he had been told, but taking the point onto the next level.
That's why I was wondering about eureka moments

If he is pretty good at the simple stuff as well which is the background to the difficult stuff, it probably is a 'moment'.

My DS (Yr 3)is not so confident in maths (still struggles to answer some simple additions immediately) but then he said, totally out of the blue -6+1=5 doesn't it mummy? Yes I said, thinking it was a one off but then he said he said -6+2=4 and -5+2=3 so he seemed to understand the relationship. What a genius I thought but then he can't add up 6+2=8 and I wonder what is going on in his head.

We have some work to do I think!

I also have no idea what goes on in my ds' head - but that is a whole other thread !!

ally out of the blue -6+1=5 doesn't it mummy? Yes I said, thinking it was a one off but then he said he said -6+2=4 and -5+2=3 so he

um - -6+2=-4 not 4 (and the others) - you forgot the minus.

DD2 had a Eureka moment when struggling wiht decimals - she looked at the number (6.25) and said in wonder "oh, it's just like money!"

Sorry Throckenholt - DS can do sums but his poor mother is unable to type! You are right it should be minus 4 or whatever.

I think the eureka moment comes - if it comes at all - some time in the A level syllabus when you suddenly get a glimpse of how vectors, matrices, imaginary numbers and differential calculus are all related. Up to what was then O level, maths seemed to me to be a collection of different topics with little to hold them together.

Lady - I agree that there could be a eureka moment during A levels - it failed to arrive for me. O level maths I found so easy and then A level I just did not get. There were others in the class for whom it had clearly clicked, they just got whatever proposition was put before them - I didn't and had to drop the subject. I now describe it as having a maths brain - I have an arts/humanities brain. Dh most definately has a maths brain.

I suppose I was considering much younger children - only because that is what I have - and so perhaps a less impressive/showy eureka moment, but more akin to suddenly understanding how to read.

I remember a eureka moment with complex numbers - sadly all forgotten now !

feeling slightly encouraged with all this talk of eureka moments. Could do with one pronto!