Real-Life Math -- Solution
You get the total weight of each element by multiplying its atomic
mass by the number of atoms present. Multiply that by 100 and then divide
by the total molecular weight of the sugar compound. That will give you the
percentage of each element.
Insert the appropriate numbers from the
graph into the formula.
| No. of Atoms | Atomic Weight | Total Weight |
| Carbon | 12 | 12 | 144 |
| Hydrogen | 22 | 1 | 22 |
| Oxygen | 11 | 16 | 176 |
| | | ---- |
| Molecular weight of sugar: | 342 |
C = 144 x 100 / 342 = 42.10 per cent
H = 22 x 100
/ 342 = 6.44 per cent
O = 176 x 100 / 342 = 51.46 per cent
How
strong should your math skills be?
"Ideally, fairly strong," says biochemist
Penny Beuning. "Most bachelor's level biochemistry students have had a year
of calculus, and they should," says Beuning. "That's a good level, I think,
because a lot of biochemistry majors take physical chemistry, and you have
to have calculus to do that, at least to get through it. You don't have to
be a math whiz, but you have to get through it."
Beuning says biochemists
use a bit of math on a day-to-day basis. This is true in the university setting
as well as in industry.
"Also, a decent understanding of statistics
is very useful," Beuning says. "Because [if] you run 10 experiments, what's
the average? What does that mean? What's the range? Is the difference that
you see meaningful? That's an important thing to be able to determine.
"Many
areas of biochemistry are not very math-intensive, but to be able to draw
upon that ability to reason logically and quantitatively is very useful, and
that’s what [math] gets you."