Explore how humans and many other animals share a primitive sense of numbers in this video from NOVA: The Great Math Mystery. Scientific experiments with lemurs and rhesus monkeys have shown that animals can compare quantities of objects even without language or symbols for numbers. Similar tests that ask humans to respond quickly to a touchscreen to compare quantities (without counting) produce similar results. The ability to perceive number may be preprogrammed into our brains and may have been fundamental to the invention/discovery of mathematics and the transformation of human culture through science, technology, and engineering.
Visit the program page here.