• Question: how does maths affect science?

    Asked by hardscope to Amy, Drew, Julia, Kimberley, Sara on 22 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Technically – according to mathematicians Maths IS a science! It is very important for physics (and used quite a bit in Chemistry and Biology too). Isaac Newton worked out a lot of mathematical theories for his discoveries about the universe!! 🙂

    • Photo: Julia Griffen

      Julia Griffen answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Hey Hardscope… without maths you wouldn’t have science, you could almost call maths the language of science :-S Mathematical terms helps to prove many scientific theroies and helps in calculations and measurments of things. The words just help describe the maths 😛

    • Photo: Sara Imari Walker

      Sara Imari Walker answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Hello hardscope! Sorry for the slower reply!!

      Math is what enables us to find patterns in nature and draw conclusions about how we think things work. It also allows us to write equations and make models for predicting outcomes. Almost all of physics is based on math, and much of biology and chemistry as Amy has said. I would say all science is math (except some biology which is more based on characterization). But not all math is science! (there is some really wild math we haven’t found applications for yet – but we might in the future!). Basically math is integral to the way we do science – it is our best tool. I love math!! (almost as much as science which is to say A LOT!)

      This comic is a great joke about the role of math in science: http://xkcd.com/435/

    • Photo: Drew Rae

      Drew Rae answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      I like the way Julia put it. Maths is a way of precisely talking about science which allows us to manipulate the ideas in systematic ways. Like all languages, you can talk about things that don’t exist, and like all languages, sometimes it’s hard to get the right words for what does exist.

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