• Question: how do you proses math???????

    Asked by bath534wave on 26 Sep 2025.
    • Photo: Rachel Edwards

      Rachel Edwards answered on 26 Sep 2025:

      Hello! Are you asking about how we process maths, i.e. how we actually do it? Some of my maths I still do on paper – when I need to figure out which equations to use, and rearrange them to do what I need them to do, I use paper. But mostly I now use a computer, as we can programme them to do data analysis for us if we need to keep doing the same processing.

    • Photo: Caroline Roche

      Caroline Roche answered on 29 Sep 2025:

      Most of the maths I do is either simple calculations that I do quickly in excel or more complicated calculations that are reused alot, like calculating the average temperature in different sized panels when all the computers are turned on, for those there will be a prebuilt excel sheet I use.
      For more bespoke calculations or ones that I have to code into the software, I will work it out by hand to break it down into more manageable maths so it is easier to follow and I can see straight away whether the software is generating the correct answer.

    • Photo: John Easton

      John Easton answered on 2 Oct 2025:

      Simple stuff is often quicker to do on paper or with the calculator application on the laptop (use that far more that I think I should ;-). Anything more complex or something I know I’m going to be reusing / repeating is mostly done by writing a small program that takes the inputs and spits out the answers. I can then re-use that over and over.

    • Photo: Allyson McIntyre

      Allyson McIntyre answered on 29 Oct 2025:

      We have many different approaches depending on what we are doing. Very simple stuff can still often be done in your head, paper or simple excel formulas. Some of the more complex stuff involves some formulas, macros and coding to help automate some things. For some of the more heavy chemistry specific things we have specific software designed to help us with the data processing. We are trained on how to input the information and apply the software correctly to process the data to get a result. In my past role i used to process the data differently and then compare the results to understand what was going on in the complex experiment i was involved in.

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