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Asked by azon to Aggelos, Andrew, Eileen, Naomi, Shane on 13 Nov 2012.
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Shane Bergin answered on 13 Nov 2012:
maths is like a language for scientists. especially physicists. you’ll see why things like integration or ‘rates of change’ are important when you are trying to describe an experiment or a phenomenon like a guy doing a sky dive from outer space! Maths can be difficult at times, but there is no other subject that gives you the same ‘feel good’ or ‘i got it!’ feeling when you do figure it out. It’s the most important subject in school after learning to read
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Andrew Jackson answered on 13 Nov 2012:
For me quite a lot of maths. I avoided maths in university for as long as i could, but more recently I have come to see the beauty in numbers. It really helps me when I am writing computer programs that I use in my research and I teach some basic maths and statistics to our science students. Its important for all scientsits to know a little maths, but nothing much harder than Leaving Cert Maths. Plus, as I found, its much easier to learn maths when you see how you can use it to answer questions in physics, biology or chemistry rather than just doing it for the sake of maths.
Its not always easy though, but its worth sticking with. And I completely agree with shane, the moment when you get something in maths is amazing… its like riding a bike.. you never forget ever again once the lightbulb goes on in your head.
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Aggelos Zacharopoulos answered on 13 Nov 2012:
@azon
Maths is one of the main tools used by scientists especially when they need to calculate stuff. But it is not the only tool and not always the most important one! -
Eileen Diskin answered on 14 Nov 2012:
A good bit, but not all of it. I was never very good at maths in school…so even though I’m a scientist now, I try and avoid it a bit! The internet is brilliant, usually if I need to do something with statistics, for example, I google it and see how its done.
But one thing I’m working on (maybe it doesn’t work in all kinds of science!) is finding a way of talking about my results using different sorts of ways – diagrams and things, instead of complicated graphs!
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Naomi Elster answered on 17 Nov 2012:
It depends on the type of science you are doing. Maths is important to me – I spend a lot of my day doing calculations. But these are easy calculations, even though it is very important I get them right! They involve multiplication and division to work out how many cells are in a solution, how many cells to take and put on a plate, and how much drug to add to these cells. Later, I can come back and see how many cells are still alive. By doing this with a few different drugs, I can tell which is the most effective.
I also use a lot of statistics. This worried me when I started but I was honest about the fact that I had no experience with statistics and I was allowed to go on a training course, which helped me understand them and now I am very confident. There will always be help with maths when you need it, and the maths that I need as a biologist are nowhere near as complicated as maths for the leaving cert!
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