What's the Point of Math

Math has an exciting story stretching back many thousands of years. Studying math helps us understand how ideas have evolved throughout human history. From ancient times to today, the human race’s incredible progress and advancement owe a lot to our skill and expertise with math.

TELLING TIME From early humans counting passing days by tracking the moon to today’s super-accurate atomic clocks that keep time to tiny fractions of a second, math is with us every second of every hour.

NAVIGATING EARTH Maths has always helped humans navigate the world, from plotting points on maps to the high-tech triangulation techniques that modern-day GPS systems use.

GROWING CROPS From early humans trying to predict when fruit would be ripe to modern mathematical analysis that makes sure farmers get the most from their land, math helps feed us all year round.

MAKING MONEY From counting what people owned thousands of years ago to the sophisticated mathematical models that explain, manage, and predict international business and trade, our world today could not exist without the mathematics of economics.

COMPUTING When Ada Lovelace wrote the world’s first computer program, she couldn’t have imagined the way her math would change the world. Today, our TVs, smartphones, and computers make millions of calculations to allow gigabytes of data to race through high-speed internet connections