Elizabeth Toomarian

Elizabeth Toomarian, an educational neuroscientist from Stanford University, shares insights on why our brains struggle with big numbers. She explains how our cognitive abilities, shaped by evolution, are better suited for simple calculations than the complexities of the national debt or the scale of the universe. Toomarian discusses the mental number line and how our understanding of numbers evolves, emphasizing the importance of visual aids and metaphors to enhance numerical literacy in modern contexts like finance and climate change.