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Asked by becky2807 to Alan, Caspar, Diana, Murray, Sarah on 18 Mar 2011 in Categories: Your Research.
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Murray Collins answered on 18 Mar 2011:
Honestly – not amazing! But I am doing a lot of practice now and am getting better. Using statistics to analyse your results is essential in science, and I am having to learn a lot of statistics during my PhD training. When I do finally understand something it feels really satisfying. So, don;t panic if you’re not great at maths, but just keep on trying, and keep on learning!
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Caspar Addyman answered on 18 Mar 2011:
Yes, I was quite good at maths at school and so I went to university to do a maths degree. At first, I was still quite good at maths but it very quickly became harder and harder. That’s part of the trouble with maths, however good you get there are some even harder problems just around the corner.
Sometimes it was strange how suddenly some maths courses could become too difficult. Sometimes half way through a class it would be too much for my brain to fit in. I think everybody has this problem at some point in maths. Some people have trouble from the beginning, some people during GCSE’s, others if they go onto A-level. I had trouble halfway through university. And I’m sure Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein occasionally found things they didn’t understand.
However, I worked hard enough to finish my maths degree and I am glad i did. I don’t use a lot of that maths in my own science work but I used to use it a lot when working in Banking. Beside university maths is also not the sort of thing that you’d learn for fun. So I’m glad i was to forced to learn it.
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Sarah Thomas answered on 18 Mar 2011:
I did well in maths at school but now I don’t think I’m very good at it anymore. It’s so easy to get out of practice!!
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Diana Drennan answered on 18 Mar 2011:
Oy – I guess that depends on your definition of “good”. I suppose compared to most people I’m pretty good at it. I don’t really like differential equations tho. I liked geometry, the proofs seem very logical and that appeals to me. However, compared to my father, who is a world famous research statistician, and a genius, I’m not good at all. I don’t understand most of the equations in his papers, although I get the main ideas. My work, although heavily computational, doesn’t require me to do a lot of math, because the computer does most of the heavy stuff. I do, however, have to understand what the computer is doing for me, and how it gets the various scores. Then, I get to compare scores and figure out which ones are the most important for my model. Sort of like when your teachers don’t let you use a calculator to do math until you understand how to do it for yourself. Then you get to use a calculator to save time.
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Alan Winfield answered on 18 Mar 2011:
Well Becky I think I’m ok at maths now, but – if I’m honest – I was pretty hopeless at school. In fact my worst ever school exam result was in maths – 3% – when I was about 14. I just didn’t ‘get it’. I then got a bit better and just managed a pass in maths O-level (the old fashioned equivalent of GCSEs). I did maths at A-level and fortunately had a brilliant maths teacher called ‘Brab’ Smith, who was amazing at helping you to understand what’s going on. Under his guidance I finally got it, especially algebra, trigonometry and calculus, well enough to get a C grade at A-level.
The funny thing is that I went on to do much harder maths at Uni as an engineering student and somehow it all made sense (although I think Brab Smith had something to do with it). I think I realised I was better at maths when it was applied to real engineering problems rather than abstract theory.
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