Madam, – In response to Marc Morgan’s question, “Does mathematics have any practical value?” (November 8th), I wish to respond as follows.

Apart from its direct applications to electrical circuits and machinery, electronics (including circuit design and computer hardware), computer software (including cryptography for internet transaction security, business software, anti-virus software and games), telephones, mobile phones, fax machines, radio and television broadcasting systems, antenna design, computer game consoles, hand-held devices such as iPods, architecture and construction, automobile design and fabrication, space travel, GPS systems, radar, X-ray machines, medical scanners, particle research, meteorology, satellites, all of physics and much of chemistry, the answer is probably “No”. – Yours, etc,