Seriously brilliant maths careers can be achieved .. When she was younger, my sister really wanted to work on the checkout at our local supermarket...that's using maths in a really practical way - all that addition! :-) Although, behind the scenes of any retailer, there's an amazing range of skilled professionals. Making sure the shelves are stacked involves statistics, … [Read more...]
How to work out the volume of a cone and hemisphere
How to work out the volume of a cone and hemisphere - or an ice cream! These are really higher level grade A / B GCSE questions but: - the formulas are given on the exam paper (although you should learn them :-)) and - if you work through logically it should be straightforward. The questions usually involve calculating a volume of a cone, sphere or hemisphere. There might … [Read more...]
Why and how to work out volume of a prism
Learning how to work out volume of a prism can be very important for all sorts of applications - mainly in manufacturing and transportation. A 'prism' is a shape with a constant cross section, such as a cardboard box. It basically means that if you cut the prism in half the shape will be the same in the middle: Try the Quick Test volumes of 3D shapes To work out the … [Read more...]
Why and how to calculate density
How to calculate density can be very important in design and construction.. Density is measured by how much something weighs for a fixed volume, usually a 1cm cube. It's a measurement that compares different materials of the same size. This is a level C GCSE question: "An 8cm solid hexagonal prism has a cross-section area of 15cm squared. The prism is made from wood … [Read more...]
Why and how to use stratified sampling
Stratified sampling is all about using a smaller sample to collect data .. and then using the information to make conclusions about the whole population. It's usually cheaper and quicker - so, if you want to find out how many students, in a high school, like football - you can just ask a few and decide the outcome. That's the theory... but there is a bit of a problem. Suppose … [Read more...]