• Question: Why is math so essential to us

    Asked by debt520guvs on 7 Mar 2025.
    • Photo: Melissa U

      Melissa U answered on 7 Mar 2025:

      For my kind of work maths is important when I’m working out how much medicine I need to give to an animal – this based on knowing the weight of the animal (in kg), the recommended dose rate of the medicine (in mg/kg) and the concentration of the medicine in the product I’m using (this might be a tablet or an injection, for example, in mg or mg/ml if it’s a liquid) Using these three numbers maths helps me to work out how many tablets/how big an injection I need to give. So it’s not complicated maths but it’s super important to be able to do it accurately, to keep the animal safe (wouldn’t want to give too much, as that might harm the animal, wouldn’t want to give too little as the medicine might not work effectively)

    • Photo: Martin Pike

      Martin Pike answered on 10 Mar 2025:

      Maths allows us to use what we know, to find out things we do not know or cannot directly measure. A simple example is the height of a tree – they are very difficult to measure using ladders, but if you know how far away from it you are and what angle it is to the top you can work out the height using : distance to tree x Tan(angle to top) = height. Similarly you can work out the distance to the moon if you know the speed of light and how long it takes a (laser) light to travel from the earth to a reflector on the moon (left by the Apollo missions). Almost anything you own or use can be described with maths – or maths was used to produce it.

    • Photo: Richard Collins

      Richard Collins answered on 11 Mar 2025:

      Equations are used to model, and understand, interactions of all kinds.
      Molecules with other molecules, animals with other animals, wind patterns etc. All are modelled using equations!

    • Photo: Abigail Frith

      Abigail Frith answered on 12 Mar 2025:

      Maths underpins everything and is applicable to all subject areas in some shape or form, it helps us figure out how much a project will cost, how many tiles are needed to tile a bathroom, how stable a structure is, and so much more

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