Maths for Science

Introduction

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The unit that follows presents two sections from different parts of the Maths for Science teaching text – a course designed to help OU students acquire the knowledge and skills to tackle the mathematical aspects of science courses they are likely to go on to study. The first (Section 1), covering the first six of the learning outcomes, is about measurement. Observation, measurement and the recording of data are central activities in science. Whether measurements are made using simple instruments such as rulers and thermometers, or involve sophisticated devices such as electron microscopes or lasers, there are decisions to be made about how the results are to be represented, what units of measurements will be used and the precision to which the measurements will be made. The second selection from the course (Section 2) is about probability and descriptive statistics, where you will learn something of the statistical techniques that are used to make sense of data of the type often gathered from measurements of the type discussed in Section 1.

This unit is an adapted extract from the course Maths for science (S151) [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]

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