Leaving Certificate maths has helped transform the music world, the audience at a Science Week event in Ballymun was told today.
Over 100 transition year students heard from Michael McCarthy of Waterford Institute of Technology about the ways that classroom trigonometry are being used to create MP3 files.
"It may appear boring but we all use this trigonometry all the time. There are plenty of careers out there that use all of this stuff" said Mr McCarthy.
Products such as the iPod have revolutionised the world of personal music by using leaving certificate trigonometry to fit thousands of songs onto a device that can still fit in your pocket.
"CDs store songs as a WAV file, which allows you to fit maybe 12 to 15 songs on a CD. MP3 (which an iPod uses) is not actually a sound, it is a list of trigonometry that is used to construct digital sound on the fly," said Mr McCarthy.
Mr McCarthy compared the use of trigonometry to compress files to how a chef would use simple ingredients to create what he desired.
Just like in cooking, the same ingredients could be used in numerous different ways to make entirely different things.
"Instead of making food, we are going to see what we can make using trigonometry," he said.
Speaking after the event, Mr McCarthy talked about how his primary objective was to make the subject accessible to the students.
"It is such a shame that so many are turning away from it because they think it is more complicated than it is," he said.