• Question: Is Maths important in science?

    Asked by 847actj35 to Adam, Adele, Deborah, Matt, Samantha on 16 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Adele Wratten

      Adele Wratten answered on 16 Jun 2017:

      There’s no getting away from the fact that maths is important in science, but it’s used in lots of different ways and to different levels. When I was at school I was never naturally very good at maths, and it’s still not my favourite thing in the world now, so don’t let it put you off at all!

    • Photo: Matthew Lee

      Matthew Lee answered on 16 Jun 2017:

      Yep. Less so in some areas and more so in others. But it is fundamentally important, you dont need to be the best at it, you just need to be able to do some of it and be willing to learn. The more you do it the better you get, just like practising football or piano etc.

    • Photo: Adam Hargreaves

      Adam Hargreaves answered on 22 Jun 2017:

      Yes definitely (as much as I hate it…). As Matt says in some disciplines it’s used more often that others, but as an example if you want to state a conclusion from your results you usually need to use statistics to show that your conclusion is supported. I also have to use it when I’m planning on doing genome sequencing, I need to know how much I need to do per sample to make sure I capture as much of the genome as possible, if not it can be a waste of a lot of money! It gets easier once you get used to it.

Comments

  • Photo: Kevin

    Kevin commented on :

    Maths, in particular, statistics is becoming the norm in truly confirming associations between variables and outcomes i.e. if we want to test whether a drug really works in a study, we need to ensure that there is appropriate statistical power. Don’t worry, I was rubbish at maths at school but eventually gained skills in applied maths, which have direct relevance to science. I have never used trigonometry or differential equations in my job.