• Question: do you know about maths?

    Asked by to Oliver, Heather, Dre, Charli, Becky on 20 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Heather Price

      Heather Price answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      Hi Messi123,

      I did maths at school and now in my research sometimes I have to do a bit of maths. To be honest, I don’t think I’m very good at it! So when I do maths for my work now I usually ask for help or read some books and then I can do it. So please don’t send me your maths homework, I probably wouldn’t be able to do it!

    • Photo: Rebecca Williams

      Rebecca Williams answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      Hi Messi,

      I know a bit of maths. I know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. I don’t think I’d be able to do much as a grown up without knowing that! Things like shopping would be very difficult.

      As a scientist, I have to know how to do some harder maths too. I am like Heather and look up the things I need to do in maths textbooks. Maths isn’t so hard once you know the basic rules and where to look up how to do the more complicated things.

    • Photo: Charlotte Flavell

      Charlotte Flavell answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      Hi Messi,

      Yes I do need to do a bit of maths – I need to be able to make sure that I give the right amount of drugs and other things. It’s not too hard and if I want to check I’ve done it right there are dilution calculators on the internet!

      I also need to be able to do statistics, but I have some computer software that helps me with that.

      I also have to do trigonometry so don’t let anyone tell you that you won’t use it later on in life!

      I don’t have to do any really complicated maths though – if I did I might cry! I don’t like maths at all 🙁

    • Photo: Oliver George

      Oliver George answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      I was never all that good at maths. It’s quite important for science though as scientists are quite fond of statistics. A lot of research requires statistics as they make it easier to see whether or not your results are meaningful or just a load of old rubbish.

      Scientists also like equations, especially in physics. One of the most famous equations is E=MC2, which was put together by Einstein. What this means is that energy of something (E) is equal to the mass of that thing (M) times by the speed of light (C) times by itself. He did loads of really complicated maths to come up with what looks like quite a simple equation.

    • Photo: Andrea Cristini

      Andrea Cristini answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      Yes quite a lot. I use maths everyday, as physics is just applying maths to what we see in everyday life and astrophysics is applying maths to what see in space.

      My whiteboard is constantly full of complicated equations and algebra. During my undergraduate degree I spent half of my time during the first two years learning about maths as part of a dual honours course. It wasn’t all that great though, as for me maths is only fun to up to a point, beyond that point it becomes too abstract and loses its application to real life I think. For example mathematicians define strictly the number 0, why it is 0 and what properties it has!

      I also teach maths as a tutor to school and college children. I also help the physics students at my university to learn how to use maths in physics.

      How much do you know about maths? Can you tell me what 1 x 0 is?

Comments