• Question: What is your favourite thing to do in mathematics?

    Asked by date522fees on 5 Feb 2025. This question was also asked by wage522fees, used522fees.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 5 Feb 2025:

      I love analysing data – plotting graphs and comparing sets of data looking for trends and differences.

Comments

  • Photo: Edward

    Edward commented on :

    I was in the top set for maths and as such, I did my GSCE maths a year early. Then I did my Alevel maths across years 11 and 12 and then further maths in year 13.
    My favourite thing I learned in further maths was proof by induction because it is so powerful and helps you prove statements about the natural numbers.
    It has two steps, the first is to show it is true for a base case, usually n=1.
    Secondly, you take the statement that is claimed to be true and show that if it is true for n=k, then it is true for n=k+1.

    One good example to try is to prove that for all natural numbers, the sum of the first n numbers is equal to n(n+1)/2.

    Proof is a really powerful tool in mathematics and it is a great exercise in logic, as well as bringing in different methods you may have learned.