SCIENCE WEEK:THE WAY in which classroom trigonometry has helped innovative companies to transform the music world was discussed yesterday at a Science Week event in Ballymun.
More than 100 transition-year students in attendance were told that Leaving Certificate mathematics – often criticised by pupils for lacking practicality – is being used to make iPods.
Michael McCarthy of Waterford Institute of Technology said maths was not always as complicated as it seemed.
“Just like cooking pancakes and scones, similar ingredients might be used [but] it is all about how you use them,” said Mr McCarthy.
“In trigonometry you actually have fewer ingredients and it just depends on how you use them to get what you want.”
Mathematicians had used the “ingredients” to develop MP3 files that have revolutionised the world of personal music.
It had allowed manufacturers to create devices that can store thousands of songs and still fit in your pocket.
“CDs store songs as a ‘wav’ file, which allows you to fit maybe 12 to 15 songs on a CD.
“MP3, on the other hand, is not actually a sound, it is a list of trigonometry that is used to construct digital sound on the fly,” said Mr McCarthy.
The audience was shown how the trigonometric methods that they learn in school were being used to compress sound files that allow companies such as iTunes to be commercially viable.
Mr McCarthy also demonstrated how it wasn’t just the music industry that uses trigonometry to prosper.
“A microwave oven is not actually an oven,” he said. “It excites the water molecules in food [using trigonometric methods] – trigonometry is cooking the food.”
He added a warning that 3G phones use similar methods to create radiation in smaller quantities.
“If you stay on an iPhone too long, you do cook your brain.
“It may appear boring but we all use this trigonometry all the time. There are plenty of careers out there that use all of this stuff,” he said.
After the event, Mr McCarthy said his primary objective was to make the subject accessible to the students.
“It is such a shame that so many are turning away from it because they think it is more complicated than it is,” he said.