When “thinking mathematically,” most people work with proportions. For example, if someone is baking brownies and wants to make a double batch, he or she intuitively knows they need to double the amount of ingredients.
So, if a person who thinks this way is told that a 100 horsepower engine, at full throttle, could make a certain car go 100 miles per hour, and then they are asked how fast a 200-hp engine would make the same car go, they’re likely to answer 200 mph.