Lisa M. Bolt Simons - Unusual and Awesome Jobs Using Math: Stunt Coordinator, Cryptologist, and More

Female blowflies find bodies minutes after death. They lay about 250 eggs where itsdamp and warm, like in a victims nose. In 1936 Dr. Alexander Mearns brought maggotsto a murder trial to help establish the time of victims deaths.

Special Skills: artistic, precise, and deadline-oriented
Education: bachelors degree; masters degree may be helpful
Prior Experience: none unless you want to work on full-length movies, then you need prior studio experience
Hourly Schedule: usually regular full-time hours; nights or weekends when a project is nearing completion
Salary: $61,000 per year starting

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Drawing in class during an algebra lesson may get you into trouble. However, bothmath and artistic ability can lead to a career as an animator.

Winsor McCay, Emile Cohl, Georges Melies, and Walt Disney worked on moving picturesin the early 1900s. They needed algebra to make characters larger or smaller. Theyused trigonometry to make the characters seem alive.

Some animators still draw the with pencil, paper, and maybe a ruler. Butmost of todays cartoons and movies are created on computers.

First, animators build models. They use geometric shapes like triangles, cubes, cylinders,and spheres. Then they bend and twist the shapes. The models are then moved intothree-dimensional (3-D) space using coordinates like x, y, and z. Animation computerprograms look like electronic graphs with numbers, negative signs, and decimals.

storyboard a series of drawings that shows the plot of a TV show or movie

An animator working with LEGO bricks for an action scene.

Other animators create the layout, or the placement, on the computer. Surfaces andshapes appear smooth by using geometry. Making the characters move involves solvingequations. Adding lighting and shading uses calculus .

Most animators who want to work on full-length movies need to start as junior animators.With experience, animators can become lipsync artists, lead animators, animationsupervisors, animation directors, and series directors.

Cartoons and movies arent the only jobs for animators. Fields such as medicine,home construction, aerospace, advertising, and forensics may also use professionalanimators. Animators may need to create animated training sessions or client presentations.

FLUID MECHANICS RESEARCHER

Special Skills: self-discipline and the ability to analyze, interpret, and reason
Education: masters degree; doctorate degree important for research
Prior Experience: none but projects in college can be helpful
Hourly Schedule: regular full-time hours
Salary: $20,000 to more than $100,000

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How many nutrients does your body absorb after eating a candy bar versus a banana? (Your mom might want to know.) How much blood pumps through a giraffes jugular vein? (A zookeeper might want to know.) To find the answers, fluid mechanics researchers and engineers use .

Professionals in this field also use special equations just for fluid. These equationsare difficult to solve because of in the flow of fluid. Time, space, andspeed, which are always changing, also affect the results.

Besides food digestion and blood flow, fluid mechanics researchers and engineersmay also focus on fluids in ocean currents or land irrigation. They may also studygases in space and flight.

estimation a guess made by using the information you have

ratio a comparison of two quantities or numbers using division

turbulence flow or motion that is not regular or normal

YOUD BETTER BELIEVE IT!

In 1921 Claude Louis Marie Henri Navier and George Gabriel Stokes worked together to invent the famous Navier-Stokes Equations for fluid mechanics. Before that, Navier built bridges in ce and Stokes researched light waves.

ASTRONAUT

Special Skills: excellent physical condition; willingness to travel and be gone from home for long periods of time; if going to the International Space Station, ability to speak Russian
Education: bachelors degree in math, engineering, or science; masters degree preferred; up to two years of astronaut training
Prior Experience: three years in the field; military background, K-12 teaching experience, research experience, engineering, or medical background; pilots must have 1,000 hours in a jet aircraft