Archive for June, 2007
What’s Math Good for? The Story of Statistics
4 June 2007 <Every once in a while, when national testing takes place you can hear hundreds and hundreds of students complaining about the inutility of math. And to be honest, unless you plan in being a math teacher or develop a career in the research field, math won’t be something you can’t live without. However, there is something about math that even the most firm advocate would question: the polysemantics of math statistics. Yes, you heard me correctly. For what is math truly good for, if not statistics and the recurrent data it provides?
Math statistics is wider than you can actually imagine. Now don’t expect me to talk about its branches and formulas: that won’t be your favorite subject, for sure. But to actually assert its relevance it might be useful to hint at a few domains where statistics actually makes the difference. So, let’s take bets for instance. You might be one of those persons who are looking forward to get to a horse race and place a bet. Well, big surprise, it all works on the basis of math statistics: you take into consideration all the horses, multiply the number with the winning probability and divide it to three. And there you have it, your successful number.
What is more, in order to use statistics for your own cause you will certainly need to know at least the basics in math. Don’t expect success and winning just to pop out of nowhere. No, no! It’s all the result of laborious and strenuous math calculus and binomial probability. So, keep in mind: math is not only the formula-filled science you have to take in high school, but, most importantly, it is the standard measurement for each and every domain in the world. Whether, statistics accounts for birth rates, minority groups, population, fees or life expectancy it will always be the fittest way to know how the world stands at a given time.
How Important Aesthetics Is - the Revolution of Industrial Design
4 June 2007 <As marketing departments have carved their ways throughout centuries, they have created multiple solutions to embellish and build products in strict dependence to customers’ tastes. That is why the product market now depends strongly on industrial design and its sub-branches. Yes, having your customers satisfied not only with the utilities of the products but also with its looks is nowadays vital. Who would possibly buy a vase, for instance just because it is functional if it doesn’t appeal to the eye? Nobody, trust me, because every single potential client is hunting appearance.
Industrial design has enforced its benefits in multiple domains: cars manufacture, bag design, containers and cans, you name it. It has in fact grown so productive that people have become addicted to it. Take the case of lunch containers. For those who have to take their food to work, workers, students or doctors, companies designed boxes and drink containers with images that represent an entire history of American container lunch. And it is all for the best! The “Taking America to Lunch” collection has caught the interest and, not at all surprisingly, there were thousands of requests for such products the very next day the exhibition took place.
But industrial design is not at all reduced to a few domains. On the contrary, it touched (and left a mark) the sphere of furniture, window and carpet design, in such a way that market competition became truly fierce. It also penetrated the domain of computers, front entrances, kitchen appliances and watches, all to give products, apart from the basic utility feature a shade of beauty and interestingness.
This way, industrial design has managed to become a separate branch of industry and marketing programs, in fact, a necessary one. And if you come to think about the fact that fashion and design nowadays are occupying top positions, industrial design is really important.