Five-Year-Olds Can Learn Calculus (2014)
Anyone commenting on this (whether saying &#x27;yes&#x27; or &#x27;no&#x27;), please first read the article. What it considers &#x27;calculus&#x27;, none of us here would consider calculus. Because very few 5 year olds are capable of understanding even something as basic as a line plot (or &#x27;2d graph&#x27; or however you want to call it). They simple do not have the neural matter to comprehend fairly advanced (from an evolutionary point of view) abstractions like the relationship between a value on an x and a y axis.<p>And of course someone is going to say &#x27;but I did it&#x27; or &#x27;my children do it&#x27; - sure. My 6 year old has a very rudimentary understanding of the relationship between area and volume, and speed and velocity (although I&#x27;m not even sure how much of it is real understanding or just parrotting; I&#x27;m not a very good teacher, I&#x27;ve learned by now, not so much in how I explain things, but more in reading feedback from students). But it&#x27;s not applicable to the population at large. I&#x27;ve tried explaining to larger groups and at that age, understanding why &#x27;half past 6&#x27; is called that, is already quite a feat. Let alone understanding that there&#x27;s two &#x27;half past 6&#x27;s&#x27; in a day, and why that is.