Book excerpt: "Where are we ever going to use this?" Every high school math student has asked this question. Often teachers themselves aren't sure how to respond. One answer is that higher mathematics learned in high school will be essential to learning yet more at the college level. A more satisfactory answer calls for an awareness of how math is applied in many specific areas. Written primarily for teachers, this book presents hundreds of practical applications for mathematics--from baseball statistics to the theory of relativity--that can be understood by anyone with a knowledge of high school algebra, geometry and trigonometry.