(Image by cheesy42)
(Image by cheesy42)

Is it possible to teach a horse how to do math? Around the year 1900 it looked like the answer was a resounding yes. My friend Trevor suggested that I write something up about Clever Hans, who was a horse capable of performing mathematical feats on par with a young human teenager. Hans could add, subtract, multiply, divide, work with fractions, differentiate musical tones, and understand the German language. At least, Hans could apparently do all of these things. Several other pages have described the Clever Hans case in great detail, so I’ll refer you to them. Please check out one or more of the following links to learn about an interesting phenomenon that has less to do with math and more to do with psychology: