The 'Real' World, from One Mathematician's Point of View

Abstract

What does a mathematics professor do on sabbatical? This one co-wrote an open-access textbook for mathematical modeling. Mathematical modeling is the process of describing phenomena found in the real world using mathematics. The more mathematical tools you have under your belt and the more you learn about the world around you, the more possibilities you have for describing and analyzing a changing system from this quantitative perspective. One could and should ask what may be learned from a quantitative approach, and what details are inherently lost or camouflaged. In this talk, I will give you some insight into one professor's sabbatical, provide examples of some useful mathematical models with mostly biological applications, discuss the inherent assumptions that go into developing these models, and the interesting outcomes that follow.