Some lazy and short-sighted developers claim that you don't need math to be a programmer. Based on my personal experience, I can say that math has improved my life as a developer far more than I expected. Let me prove it with some examples.
Math is in Algorithms
Imagine you’re in an interview, and you’re asked to calculate the sum of numbers from 1 to 100. Would you just add up all the numbers manually? What if it were 1 to 1 million, or even 1 to N, or n to m? This is where math comes in to help. The answer: Arithmetic progression.
$$ S_n = \frac{(a_1 + a_n)n}{2} $$
With this formula, you can easily calculate the sum of numbers between x and y by just plugging in the starting number ($$a_1$$), the ending number ($$a_n$$), and the total count ($$n$$). Congratulations, you now have the skills to solve this LeetCode problem in Time: O(1).
In school, you were taught the equation $$(a + b)^2 = a^2 + 2ab + b^2$$. They probably also taught you how to expand $$(a+b)^3$$, but what if an interview asks you to expand $$(a+b)^{10}$$? Well, that's easy too: Pascal’s triangle or Binomial expansion.
Congratulations! Now you can solve this LeetCode problem. In short, learning math can teach you how to ace FAANG interviews.
Math is in the Tech World
Imagine two people recording a podcast. They both talk about something very important, but since they’re speaking at the same time, the audio becomes unintelligible. Or maybe you're conducting an interview and someone's baby starts crying, making it impossible to hear your interviewee. Again, math comes to the rescue, and the answer is: Fourier transform.
Human voices oscillate within a sinusoidal range, and with this formula, you can easily separate sound frequencies. This mathematical technique is even used to remove noise from audio. You can learn more about this by watching the video above.
Conclusion
In conclusion, everything you use and develop in technology has math underlying it. Let's learn math. Prove and explain its usefulness to your friends as well!