Abstract:
Maths is a vast and beautiful discipline, with many applications, research, industry, and everyday life. Yet it is often misunderstood and met with reluctance by the general public. Maybe because of how maths is taught, making it dull instead of its dynamic and creative nature. From making an AMSI project on modelling heart disease with differential equations, I’ve felt the profound real-world impact of mathematics. By sharing our enthusiasm, and the real-world applications of maths, hopefully others can learn to see the true beauty of mathematics.
Whenever I meet someone new and we go through the obligatory introductions and “What do you do?” style questions, and recently as I’ve been discussing my AMSI project, I always anticipate the response like, “I could never do that,” or “Maths isn’t really my thing” or even, “Why would you do that to yourself?” And, honestly, it makes me quite sad. Maths is so beautiful and broad, with many different avenues and schools of thought. A mathematician could study Category Theory, Invisible Markov Chains, Perturbations, or all three! Yet, to your average person who dropped maths in high school, you may as well be speaking another language.
A reason why people may not go on to study maths or dislike the subject is because you never learn about its exciting applications. In school, maths is often reduced to plugging numbers into equations, rearranging symbols, or calculating angles inside shapes. But these are just the building blocks— tools that lead to something far greater. Instead of being presented as a vibrant, dynamic subject, it feels that maths is often taught as a checklist of tasks to get through, with little focus on the fascinating ideas that underpin it.
I only discovered how great maths could be through the National Mathematical Summer School (NMSS) which, in my opinion, is like AMSIConnect or Summer School but for high school aged students. There, we heard from tutors— some who pursued maths as a career, others who didn’t— about why they loved maths and how they used it in their lives. It opened my eyes to the many ways maths is more than just solving classroom exercises. It was about solving real world problems, exploring patterns, and being creative. Hearing people talk about maths with genuine enthusiasm made me believe that maybe I could do it as well.
Unless you went looking for it (and how many 13yr olds want to do that?), you’d never know that derivatives are the foundation for differential equations, which make roads safer, launch rockets, and model populations. My own AMSI project was constructed using differential equations to model a heart disease, atherosclerosis. You wouldn’t realise that maths underpins so many of the things you love. For example, the rhythms in music, the biomechanics of sport, or even the algorithms behind the apps we spend hours scrolling on.
How wonderful would it be if more people could share in our joy! So, the next time someone says, “Oh, I could never study maths,” maybe we can help change their perspective! Let’s be excited about maths and invite them to join this excitement, since the real maths— the one beyond worksheets and memorised formulas— is something worth learning.
Faith Sawers
The University of Adelaide
