do you have to be a good mathematician to be a good scientist?!!

Question: do you have to be a good mathematician to be a good scientist?!!
- Keywords:
  career,
  education,
  good scientist,
  mathematician,
  maths,
  study
Asked by clogerina01 to Cesar, Emily, Jamie, Kate, Philippa on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by em210198.
- Philippa Demonte answered on 14 Jun 2011:
  
  @clogerina01 Maths is really, really, REALLY useful to all areas of science. I really wish that someone had told me that when I was at school.
  
  You don’t necessarily need to be a good mathematician to be a good scientist – I’ve struggled with some of the maths for my university degree just because it was so long ago that I did maths at school and I had forgotten a lot – but if you can at least have a good understanding of maths, then you can programme computers to do the really hard stuff 😉
  
  My advice is – if you struggle with maths, persist with it. It does get easier eventually.
- Cesar Lopez-Monsalvo answered on 14 Jun 2011:
  
  I agree with Philippa. Maths is essential in most aspects of science, some require more, some others less, but all of them require even a bit.
  
  By the way, a mathematician is scientist of its own. To me is quite hard to understand how do they do it, because they “kind of” create maths…truly new maths that nobody has ever thought about. But you don’t need to reach that level to do most of your scientific duties.
  
  Personally, I like to believe that mathematics is the language of nature and that through mathematics we can really understand the deepest questions about the universe.
- Jamie Gallagher answered on 14 Jun 2011:
  
  For the things I do it is quite important. Physics needs the most- then chemistry then biology. This is very general and just in my experiance. There are so many areas of science that some will need lots of maths and some very little. If you dont like maths I wouldnt worry, as Philippa says do try and stick with it- but it is not the end of the world!
- Emily Robinson answered on 15 Jun 2011:
  
  I agree with everyone else it is important to have enough maths skills but you don’t have to be a maths genius either (as maths isn’t my hottest science area either)! But honestly I wish I was better at maths (especially mental maths, as numbers get jumbled in my head) so my advice would be to put in the work when you are young and have good maths teachers around you to help and it will help you in the future in all walks of life, not just science!
- Kate Clancy answered on 15 Jun 2011:
  
  I think it depends on what you mean by “good.” I think a lot of people set their expectations too high — that in order to be a scientist you have to just innately know multivariate calculus or something. Not true! A lot of our understanding and critical thinking about math develops over time. So I was good, but not great at math, and over time I have gotten better as it has been relevant to my job.