Use of Maths

What use is maths in everyday life?

What do going out for dinner, choosing a shampoo, or planning a holiday all have in common? You’ve guessed it: maths. Numerical and logical thinking play a part in each of these everyday activities, and in many others. A good understanding of maths in everyday life is essential for making sense of all the numbers and problems life throws at us.

Maths on the menu

It’s your birthday and you’ve decided to go out for a meal with some friends. While you won’t be having fried formulas or a side-order of statistics, maths is involved at every stage.

Looking down at the menu, you eye up the prices. The restaurant owner has worked out how much she needs to charge for her food by creating a business model detailing the cost of raw ingredients, staff wages and so on. She also has to calculate how these costs might change in the future and how many customers she expects. Many restaurants fail within their first year because of poor mathematical planning.

Thankfully this one is still open for business, so you place your order and the chef gets to work. You’d better hope he has a good grasp of maths, because understanding measurement, ratio, and proportion can be the difference between something delicious and something that ends up in the dustbin.

Turns out you’re in luck, and the food is excellent. You just about make room for dessert and it’s time to split the bill. Who had the pizza? Did you have one drink, or two? Did the waiter add everything up correctly? Being able to perform quick mental calculations will get it sorted in no time – and percentages help with leaving a tip!