[Closed] Pure maths. What's it for?

Serious?

[i]The cat in the hat[/i] might be a good starting point from the sounds of it.

Absolutely nothin'. Say it again.

I've only just learnt to count, that might be stretching it a bit.

It has a huge use!

The area I work in relies on parts of pure maths to help understand how things work.

Just cos you failed it doesn't mean it's useless.

I'm good at doing nothing, so should pass this time then.

Pure maths is for calculating the finer things in life like the appreciation in value on a fine bottle of wine, or the increase in marital pleasure from getting your wife a new pair of expensive shoes.

Normal maths is for miles per gallon, or calorie counting.

Dirty maths is used for those 'if I pay for her chips will she let me touch her monkey?' kind of things...

I'm not saying its useless DrRSAhem, I just don't know how you take it into the real world and, er, apply it.

Thanks Crikey, a much better explanation than Wiki!

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Pure maths is the only kind of maths you want to bother with. Stats, game theory, mechanics, numerical methods, et al - they're just pretending to be maths.

Pure maths is the only subject in the world that is 100% undisputed truth.

I studied discrete maths, pure maths and statistics.

The analytical tools gained from studying two of these told me that pure maths was infact a complete waste of time, so I dropped it.

Never looked back. Let the nerds [s]inherit the earth[/s] tell me about the angles in a triangle and piss about with algebra.

I got a "B" in A-level Pure Maths in 1984.

HTH.

To help solve problems like this 😕

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That's physics, and it would.

😀

The pure maths you study at 'A' level is very widely applied, in fact without we would still be struggling to build bridges over anything other than a narrow river. The stuff you will have learnt at 'A' level is basis for all engineering, finance, fluid dynamics thermo dynamics, the world. Pretty much all science relies on maths.

More generally pure maths and Applied maths and theoretical physics feed off of each other one giving in inspiration to the other the other offering new solution to perversely unsolved problems.

Pure maths is also research in it's own right however we never know what applications some discovers in pure maths may have. Pure maths frequently takes decades if not probably 100s of years or more to trickle down and find an application. In many way pure maths is sometimes rediscover by other but the hard work of establishing a theory and relationships has already been done.

Some pure maths may never have applications and many people who research pure maths don't look for them when carrying out research. It all adds to our knowledge of maths which is probably the most powerful tool we have to understand the world.

I just don't know how you take it into the real world and, er, apply it.

You don't 🙂

And people get far too hung up on this square root of -1 thing. That's not the point at all. The small i is an operator that means that when you square the number, it's negative. That's all. There's nothing to get your head round.

I studied Calculus, Algebra and Real Analysis as part of my degree (Computing Science).

Algebra was directly applicable to my main area of study; calculus I could [i]actually[/i] understand (20 years ago); but analysis - not got the foggiest what it was all about, even if it was a "dumbed down" version with no complex numbers.

I must admit that although I got a Grade A GCSE in maths my teacher at the time (1978) reckoned it wasn't worth me studying A level as I didn't have the aptitude. 'tis probably why I struggle with C#.

+1 what TheBrick said.

People discover things in pure maths that don't get used in a practical sense for ages. They just get left in a paper somewhere until physics/engineering/electronics/chemistry suddenly realize they can use it to do something.

RealMan - Member

Pure maths is the only kind of maths you want to bother with. Stats, game theory, mechanics, numerical methods, et al - they're just pretending to be maths.

Pure maths is the only subject in the world that is 100% undisputed truth.

Yep pure maths are is the only areas of science where thinks can not change. The theory of evolution may be tweaked, Newtonian mechanics can be found not to work for all scales, but pure maths shows pure relationships which which are truth.

Although I don't agree with that stats, mechanics e.t.c are playing at being maths as they are developing and feeding pure maths as they are still looking at relationships which are usually no real world and involve abstract situations e.t.c.

stuartie_c - Member
I studied Calculus, Algebra and Real Analysis as part of my degree (Computing Science).

Algebra was directly applicable to my main area of study; calculus I could actually understand (20 years ago); but analysis - not got the foggiest what it was all about, even if it was a "dumbed down" version with no complex numbers.

Analysis can be very useful in categorising problems in a sense and finding their true scope so that you can ascertain if the is existence or uniqueness of a solution for example. This is all a necessary step in solving many problems.

One of the [url= http://www.claymath.org/millennium/ ]clay institute million dollar prizes[/url] is to better understand where and when solutions of the Navier - Stokes equations excist (or don't).

Pure maths helped give millions of people their freedom from WW2, by enabling Alan Turing and his team break the German's Enigma Code at Bletchley Park.

But dirty maths got me a touch of monkey.....

Well, for my mates missus it was the route into a lucrative career globe trotting for a major multinational via their graduate entry scheme.

Reckon she should be back from a week kicking ass at their Singapore office today, so she may have just found out that their child benefit is going to be axed!

I did pure maths A level, I work in marketing now, but it is still very very useful. But Statistics is a little more important in my line of work

RealMan - Member
That's physics, and it would.

No it wouldn't. The wings would hit the uprights.

No it wouldn't. The wings would hit the uprights.

Maths rule.

More on the monkey touching math!

That's physics, and it would.

Oh, I loved the last time we did this. I was so clever everyone else thought I was being stupid 🙂

Adulterated Maths is much more fun.

I think I've misunderstood that thing about Shakespeare and infinite monkeys ...

"prithee, m'lady, wouldst like a chip ?"

Laplace Transforms, Fourier Series.
The months spent on this crap on my Mech Eng degree would have been better spent elsewhere, without a doubt.

But Laplace and Fourier are things of beauty... and how else are you going to convert between the time and frequency domains without them?

:o)

It's vector calculus that I never could quite get my head around... divs, grads, curls and all that!

Christ I haven't seen the words 'vector calculus' together for 13 years 🙂

Thankfully I haven't had to write them down for at least that long...

In fact, I'm not sure it was such a good idea to do so, it's giving me cold sweats just thinking about it!

I never could quite get my head around... divs, grads, curls and all that!

Pure Maths was my favourite subject at A-level, oh and playing pool/craps/bridge as part of Applied Maths lessons.

Mythbusters proved an aircraft can take off from a conveyor belt by actually doing it. Didn't need no fancy maths just a long strip of canvas dragged down a runway with a plane travelling in the opposite direction and it took off. Simples.

What's a monkey?

I reckon that most people that study abstract algebra, analysis or other forms of pure maths never get anywhere near actually doing anything useful with it. Other than teaching or researching it there are just so few jobs out there that require it, so in that sense I relate it much more to an arts subject.

It can be enjoyable to study and you will pick up some useful skills along the way, but as far as reusing any of it in a job; forget about it.

It's for those reasons that I turned my maths degree around to focus almost entirely on calculus based subjects, which at least finds uses every day in engineering and physics. Albeit I'm not doing any of that either in my job, and use more stats based analytics.

What's the equation for monkey touching?

takisawa2 - Member
Laplace Transforms, Fourier Series.
The months spent on this crap on my Mech Eng degree would have been better spent elsewhere, without a doubt.

Wow some of the mostly widly used methods in Engineering has been declared crap! What do you propose should be taught.

I reckon that most people that study abstract algebra, analysis or other forms of pure maths never get anywhere near actually doing anything useful with it. Other than teaching or researching it there are just so few jobs out there that require it, so in that sense I relate it much more to an arts subject.

There are not many jobs in [b]industry[/b] but they are out there, but there are very few people with a good enough level of maths in these areas anyway. A maths degree dose not tend to bring you to a high enough level to use most of the maths you learn.

Research is however an incredibly useful job and without it there would be no progress in industry.

Pure maths. What's it [b]not[/b] for?

Sorted. 🙂

I always thought Pure Maths was useless maths, and when they found a use for it it became Applied Maths.

Preferred Pure Maths 🙂

And they say STW is populated by nerds...

I always found applied maths too full of "compromises and inaccuracies" at degree level.

Applied maths simply held no beauty for me compared with linear and abstract algebra (especially convex sets, groups, rings and Galois theory) which is where I specialized in my final year.

And as for statistics, then as far as I could tell that was there for the less able students so they could get a degree after three years.

Where I studied 2nd and 3rd year pure maths seemed to be the courses that really shuffled the pack. The strong students sailed through the courses whilst the weaker ones sunk without a trace.

Pure maths also seemed to get easier each year as the underlying patterns repeated themselves across topics. My third year at University was by far the easiest of the three. Perhaps that is why a liked it so much, whereas before university my interests seemed to be more aligned to applied mathematics, although at that level the differences are perhaps not as clear cut.

I haven't done to badly out of it, although I don't use any aspects of any of my degrees in my job.

How about the internet, online shopping, mobile phones, computers, etc. hard to think of anything modern that is electronic that doesn't rely on a heavy dose of pure maths.

As for fourier transforms, they are great, but academic engineers are way too focused on them - when I worked in audio, every so often an engineer would turn up and say what you need here is some kind of processing using fourier transform, then it would sound crap, and the code would be replaced by an audio programmer, using a quick hack in the time domain, which was usually way more efficient and sounds better.

Applied maths simply held no beauty for me compared with linear and abstract algebra (especially convex sets, groups, rings and Galois theory)

Stop it, you're turning me on! 🙄

Mythbusters proved an aircraft can take off from a conveyor belt by actually doing it. Didn't need no fancy maths just a long strip of canvas dragged down a runway with a plane travelling in the opposite direction and it took off.

Other than teaching or researching it there are just so few jobs out there that require it, so in that sense I relate it much more to an arts subject.

Except maths is right or wrong.

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the maths tells you it won't work.

Maybe if you're bad at maths it does...? It will take off.

Pure maths. What's it for?

It's how a computer works but without the logic 🙂

[psling, Pure Maths A Level 1974]

They had a strip of canvas being pulled down the runway at over 100mph? I bet not - the reason the plane took off is that they weren't getting the conveyor belt speed to match the plane speed - after all it's obvious that the plane could take off if the conveyor belt is going slow enough. That's where practical experimentation falls down you see - the maths tells you it won't work.

This is either laughable or a troll....

I seem to remember a long complicated thing called Bernoulli's principle (or similar) for working out flow within pipes. I therefore think the maths nerds here should use that to tell us what the best brake hoses are to use

Oh, and let's not start the conveyor belt thing again - Won't someone think of the children?