Lesson 1.4:: Section 1: The Nature of Mathematics
Lesson 1.4:: Section 1: The Nature of Mathematics
Introduction
In our previous lesson, we discussed the concepts of symmetry and its application
to the real life situation. You also learned the different types of geometric transformations.
In this lesson, you will explore the applications of mathematics in different field. This
lesson will provide you the knowledge about the importance of mathematics in different
areas.
Intended Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this module, you must have:
1. Explained the different applications of mathematics.
2. Understand the value of mathematics in different fields.
4. Discussed the importance of mathematics in our life.
Lesson Proper
Predicting the Weather
The weather is an incredibly
complex system with billions of molecules
interacting. This makes predicting the
weather a surprisingly difficult tasks even
using the extensive network of weather
stations satellites and the world’s largest
supercomputers. Fluids like the
atmosphere follow a set of rules called the
Navier Stokes equations. Unfortunately
we don’t know a direct solution for these
equations – one of the greatest unsolved
problems in mathematics and one of the
$1 million Millennium Prize Problems.
Instead, supercomputers divide the entire atmosphere into millions of blocks each around
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one cubic kilometer in size and use numeric simulations to create a high-resolution
forecast. But even tiny differences in measurements and the simulation parameters can
have great effect on these predictions. Therefore, it is still impossible to accurately predict
the weather more than a few weeks in advance – but the accuracy of mathematical
models and speed of computers will only improve in the future.
MRI and Tomography
MRI scanners can create three-dimensional
images of the human body by taking countless two-
dimensional “snapshots” from different directions. The
process of recovering the original 3-dimensional model
using these snapshots is called tomography – and it
wouldn’t work without advanced mathematics such as
Radon Transforms. Mathematics is quite literally saving
lives.
Internet and Phones
Both internet and phone lines form a
gigantic network which allows users to exchange
data – whether websites or calls. All users are
connected by countless links which have a
certain capacity. When you make a phone call or
request a website network operators have to find
a way to connect sender and receiver without
exceeding the capacity of any individual link.
Without the mathematics of queuing
theory it would be impossible to guarantee a
reliable service. Mathematical models using
Poisson processes all but guarantee that you will
hear a dial tone when making a phone call.
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works if a certain proportion of the data is correct, so you can’t play a CD which is
completely scratched. Cross-interleaved Reed-Solomon codes used for CDs and DVDs
are based on polynomials over finite fields.
Glacier Melting
Climate change will be one of the greatest challenges faced by humanity this
century. Particularly important is the melting of the polar icecaps which has a significant
impact upon the global sea level and climate. Unfortunately satellite images from above
give limited information regarding the state of the entire ice shield, or the processes
underlying their melting. Probability and statistics can be used to analyse environmental
data for example of ice thickness and composition. At the same time complex
mathematical models using differential equations and thermodynamics can help
scientists understand the interaction of wind sea ice ocean currents and heat transfer.
Public Key Cryptography
Whenever you send an email or
use your credit card online secret
information has to be exchanged
between your computer and a web
server. Mathematics can be used to
encipher this information so that third
parties can’t read and misuse it. The
receiving computer thinks of two very
large prime numbers (usually more than
100 digits) and publishes their product.
The sending computer uses this product
to encipher the message and sends it to
the receiver. However, to go backwards
and decipher the message you not only need to know the product but also the two original
primes. It is extremely hard to factorise numbers of that size which means that to read the
message you must already know the original primes - and only the receiving computer
does. This process called RSA after its inventors Rivest Shamir and Adleman is used
everywhere in the world from banking to cellphone messages.
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Satellite Navigation
To determine any location on
Earth satellite navigation systems like
GPS use signals from satellites which
provide extremely accurate times. By
finding their delay a computer can
calculate how far away the satellites are.
If you know the distance from at least
three different satellites and the position
of these satellites you can find the unique
and exact position of the receiver on
Earth. For accuracy, you have to take
account of numerous physical issues:
according to Special Relativity time
moves faster for the satellite because it is moving so fast and slower because it is further
from the Earth’s gravitational field. Both effects are tiny and undetectable in everyday life.
But without taking these effects into account GPS receivers would accumulate an error
of 10 km per day! A metric space is the mathematical generalisation of measuring
distances. Because of general relativity GPS receivers have to use the Kerr metric rather
than the usual Euclidean metric.
Codes and Communication
Imagine that any message can be
represented by a point in space. During
transmission say via a phone you might
encounter noise leading to all points moving
slightly. Before transmitting, you don't know
how the points will move leading to small
'spheres of uncertainty' around every
message point. To make a transmission as
efficient as possible you want to stack these
'spheres' as closely as possible.
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Building Bridges
Suspension bridges are elegant bridges
that span distances between 300 and 2300
meters. Their flexibility and low deadweight are
great for engineering. These same qualities are
also liabilities. Suspension bridges are actually
quite flexible to prevent buckling. This flexibility
causes also means these bridges are
susceptible to resonance. Resonance is a
phenomenon modelled using second-order
differential equations.
Digital Music
Music and sound consist of wave’s small vibrations of instruments loudspeakers
air molecules and our ear. These waves can be stored on a CD as a string of numbers
by taking samples at short time intervals –
usually 44100 times per second. This is a lot
of numbers and the reason why CDs are often
as large as 700MB. Sound waves are the
combination of many waves with different
frequencies. While all frequencies are stored
on a CD our ear and only hear a certain range.
The mathematical Fourier transform allows us
to split a complex sound wave into many
simple sine waves with different frequencies.
Audio formats like MP3 only keep the
frequencies which are audible to humans thus
making the files much smaller. To reduce the file size even further you can use Huffman
Codes which analyses the digital content of music and makes sure that common parts
are encoded using less space than rare parts. Without mathematics there would be no
iPods Spotify or iTunes. Even more mathematics is used for digital music editing such as
equalising reverb noise reduction and mixing.
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Cosmology
Cosmology is the study of the origin and
evolution of our universe. Mathematical equations
can model this process from the Big Bang until today
and can even predict what will happen to the
universe in the future. Our universe is expanding at
a rapid speed and the rate of expansion follows the
Friedmann Equations which can be deduced from
Einstein’s field equations of gravitation. The fate of
the universe depends on the amount of matter (=
energy) in the universe and astronomical
observations suggest the existence of dark matter
and dark energy. Mathematicians also use
supercomputers to model the universe very shortly after the Big Bang.
Gambling and Betting
Gambling is always a bad idea – because casinos and bookmakers know
mathematics and they can adjust the odds of games and bets in ways that guarantee they
will always win in the long run. While it is
impossible to use probability to predict the
next dice roll or roulette number you can
accurately predict what might happen in the
next 1000 dice rolls – this is called the Law
of Large Numbers. Even a winning
probability of 49% gives the “house” a
sufficient “edge” to make great profits. You
can also use game theory random walks and
statistics to develop and test gambling
strategies. Sports betting is particularly
interesting because the odds change over
time. In lotteries every selection of numbers has the same chance of being drawn. (An
extremely small chance!) However, the jackpot is split between everybody who wins – to
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maximise your expected gain you want to choose numbers which very few others are
likely to choose.
Breaking the Enigma
During the Second World War the German military used the Enigma to encode
secret messages. The Enigma consisted of
two keyboards: as you type on one
keyboard the encoded letters light up on
the other one. When you encipher text
using the Enigma the letters in the alphabet
are repeatedly “scrambled” using a series
of rotors. After typing one letter these
rotors move so that next time all letters are
scrambled differently. Together with
several other features this lead to more
than 150 trillion possible ways in which
secret messages could have been
enciphered. Nevertheless, the British
mathematician Alan Turing managed to break the Enigma by building one of the first
computers the Bombe. Even more complex than Enigma codes was the Lorenz Cipher.
British mathematicians and cryptographers led by Max Newman built the first
programmable digital computer Colossus to also break this code. Though in great secrecy
mathematics formed a significant part that led to the end and victory of the Second World
War.
Search Engines
Billions of people use the internet every day.
One of the reasons is that the internet makes it so
easy to find information quickly for example using
search engines like Google. In order to find the most
useful websites and display them at the top Google
represents all pages on the internet in a gigantic
matrix. The matrix knows about how the various
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websites are linked and you can use linear algebra probability and graph theory to find
the most popular sites. Google uses mathematics for many other of its services: finding
directions in Maps spam detection in Gmail voice recognition on Android text recognition
when scanning books compressing YouTube videos detecting faces in images or
translating text.
Finance and Banking
In financial mathematics, traders can buy or sell stocks in a company commodities like oil
and gold or derivatives which are “virtual” goods
whose prices are derived from the change of
other things. For example, you can buy options
which could allow you to buy or sell a stock at a
particular price at some point in the future – if you
still want to at that time. Financial analysts have
many different mathematical tools to help them
make better decisions for example statistical
models to analyse historic economic data or
probability and Stochastic calculus to predict the
behaviour of financial markets. Particularly famous is the Black-Scholes equation a partial
differential equation used to find the correct value of derivatives.
Supply Chains
Each time we buy something from a store,
order something online, send a letter, we are
engaging with a complex system called a
supply chain. Our purchases depend on of
manufacturing, shipping, stocking, pricing, and
sales working together. Supply chains use
many different areas of math to combine
logistics and finances. Financial engineering,
graph theory, and operations research are
three of many areas in math involved in supply
chains.
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Construction
Construction requires teams of people to work together. From planning to
construction to opening, people with many different skill sets ensure the success of the
structure. One of the many professionals
involved in construction is structural
engineers. Structural engineers turn
architectural designs into reality. They use
several areas of math to assess how
structures react to forces in their
environments. For example, structural
engineers consider how the vibrations
created changes in the structure. Wind,
underground transportation, earth
movements, walking, or vehicles all cause
vibrations. Before any construction begins, structural engineers provide advisement.
Even during construction, they incorporate new information into planning and risk
assessment. Math really does keep buildings standing!
Automotive Design
Many engineers involved in designing
cars use mathematics. For example, the way
air moves around the car at different speeds
directly impacts how much fuel the car uses.
The design team must take aerodynamics into
account. They likely uses CAB or CAM
software to assess the aerodynamics of their
designs. Another teams determine the
appropriate materials for building the car.
They model and tests material strength. Tests
expose materials to different conditions like
extreme heat or cold, or collisions of different speeds.
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Navigation
Navigation at it's the most basic form uses trigonometry, to identify a location. Early
forms of navigation included using a star
charts, an instrument called a sextant, and an
accurate clock. The sextant measures the
distance between a specific constellation and
the horizon. The measurements between
constellations and the horizon change based
on time of day and time of year. Sailors
compared the sextant's measurements to
their intended path. NASA still uses celestial
navigation, though the technical
sophistication has improved. Many other
methods of navigation exist. Triangulation drives each method. Triangulation is the
method of identifying a location given two others.
Speech Recognition
Speech recognition is an interesting and difficult problem. Each language has its own set
of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.
Even within a language people use it differently.
Computers can detect sounds. They use
complex statistical models to guess what the
sounds mean. Take a three syllable word in
English, "potato". A tree like this shows the
statistical probabilities of the speaker's
pronunciation. The three indicates there is a
60% change the first syllable sounds like "Poh"
and a 40% chance of sounding like "Pah". The
probabilities get more complex the more
syllables in a phrase. For example, a computer may detect this: r eh k ao g n ay z s p iy
ch. Based on common sound combinations in English, the compter interprets this as
"recognise speech". Compare this to the phrase: r eh k ay n ay s b iy ch. Just a few small
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changes in the sound combinations deliver a drastically different phrase, "wreck a nice
beach". It is coming for today's speech recognition programs to have 60,000 words. This
means a three word phrase could be any of 216 trillion possibilities.
Volcano Monitoring
Scientists make estimations about when a
volcano will erupt using data from a variety of
places. Historically we could only make
predictions using historical data. Scientists used
Poisson statistical distributions to analyse this
data. Now we have information from global
navigation satellite systems (GNSS) and
synthetic aperture radar (SAR) that give clues
about events under the Earth's surface. Scientists
use estimation theory, control systems, and
several types of statistics to make more accurate predictions.
Roller Coaster Design
Designing a roller coaster is not easy:
they have to be exciting but not jerky fast but
able to brake quickly and most importantly they
have to be safe. Mathematics can be used to
calculate the forces acting on roller coaster
trains as they gain momentum and the structural
support needed to support these forces.
Mathematical equations and calculus can also
be used to calculate the shape of a smooth track
including loops ‘corkscrews’ and many other
features.
Public Transportation
Every day there are around 50000 commercial airline flights. All planes all luggage
every crew and all passengers have to be at the right place at the right time and planes
need to be serviced and refuelled. Most importantly planes can’t crash when arriving at
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the rate of decay and use mathematics to calculate the time since which it has been
decaying. This was the time when the plant or animal died. Mathematics can also help in
other parts of archaeology. For example the size of collected bones can be used to
calculate the weight they had to support and hence the size of the corresponding animals
or humans.
Defence and Military
In addition to providing the framework for
designing new technologies and weapons or
solutions to logistical problems like the
transportation of soldiers’ weapons and food
mathematical models can be used to develop and
simulate complex military strategies. These
simulations might involve game theory statistics or
probability. In recent years cyperwarfare has
become increasingly important for
counterintelligence industrial espionage terrorism
and sabotage. Organisations like the NSA or
GCHQ develop and attempt to break secret codes.
Traffic Optimisation
Transportation engineers design
transportation systems. They use data analysis to
identify problems with traffic flow. Phantom traffic
jams are one of the interesting phenomenon they
study. Traffic jams are generally during rush hour,
large events, construction, or crashes. We expect
to be able to identify the reason for traffic jams.
Occasionally, traffic jams occur for no specific
reason. The data shows that phantom traffic jams
occur at 15-20 km per hour and can last up to 100
km! One way roadways try to prevent this
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phenomenon is to gradually reduce the speed limit in busy areas. This bring the flow rate
to a more optimal range.
Rockets and Satellites
Before a rocket reaches space it has to overcome the enormous gravitational pull
of the Earth. This is only possible with sufficient speed and fuel. More fuel makes the
rocket heavier and harder to accelerate, but the
weight of the fuel also decreases during the
flight. These and many other factors have to be
taken into account when designing rockets and
modelling their flight path. It’s not rocket science
– it’s mathematics! In space the motion of
rockets and satellites is still governed by gravity.
In order for space shuttles to meet up with the
ISS GPS and television satellites to be in the
right place at the right time and for lunar modules
to be able to land on the moon we need
differential equations and spherical geometry. Once a rocket or satellite is launched
scientists on Earth have to communicate with it. But the long distance means that received
signals contain noise many small errors which make data unreliable or even unusable.
Mathematics presents various clever algorithms to encode data in a way that you can
detect and even correct a certain amount of these errors after transmission.
Artificial Intelligence
Where does its sudden success come from?
Traditionally, programming a robot meant giving
instructions of what the robot should do. But we,
as humans, are not taught of everything we can
do. We learn by ourselves. A kid that has seen
many cats can recognize that an animal is a cat
even it that animal is different from all the models
seen before. Now robots can do the same. The
recent success of artificial intelligence comes
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from the fact that the robots are programmed to learn. This learning process is made
possible because of the massive data available.
Crime Prediction
If you have seen the TV series NUMB3RS you
will remember many ways in which mathematics was
used by the FBI. And while most of these examples
were made up mathematics does have real
applications when mapping predicting and preventing
crime. For example the behaviour of a burglar could
be modelled as a Random Walk thus allowing for
more effective police patrols. Mathematicians also
worked with the LAPD to understand the
development and dynamics of “crime hotspots”.
Using probability statistics and swarm dynamics they
found that there are two kinds of hotspots which react very differently on police
intervention.
Search for Alien Life
Primes are the universal building blocks of numbers not just on Earth but
everywhere in the universe. If radio signals from space contain the sequence of prime
numbers – 2 3 5 7 11 13 … – they would almost
certainly indicate a non-natural origin and could be
the starting point for communication with alien life. A
famous signal sent from Earth into space the Arecibo
Message consists of a long string of 0s and 1s. The
length of the message is the product of two prime
numbers 23 × 73 = 1679 which should prompt alien
astronomers to reassemble the 0s and 1s into a
rectangular image with sides 23 and 73. Mathematics
can also help estimate the number of extra-terrestrial
civilisations which we might get to know at some point
in the future: using the Drake Equations. By considering and estimating many different
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factors you can calculate that there could be between 1000 and 10 million planets in our
Milky Way which are inhabited by intelligent life!
Data Analysis
Data is everywhere around us and new data is created every time we browse the
internet complete a survey or go shopping. Scientists collect data whenever they conduct
an experiment and sometimes these data sets are
so large that they need to invent entirely new
technologies (like the internet) to process them.
To make sense of data we need statistics. Using
mathematics we can convert a large collection of
numbers – all of which are meaningless on their
own – into very accurate information about the
system which created the data. (The “system”
could be a group of humans a scientific
experiment or even the weather.) Statistics can
also tell us if certain findings are valid or significant. We need statistics in science
engineering and academic research but also in everyday life – for example to interpret
percentages and graphs in newspapers.
Tectonic Plate Motion
A Danish mathematician, Inge Lehmann,
discovered the inner core of the Earth in 1936.
She worked for the Danish Geodetic Institute and
had access to data on the seismic waves
generated by distant earthquakes and recorded at
seismic stations around the Earth. The observed
data were inconsistent with the model of the inner
of the Earth used at that time. She proposed a
new model compatible with the observations, with
the core divided into two parts, a heavier inner
core surrounded by an outer core. Some seismic
waves bounce on the inner core, which is now known to be ferrous.
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Assessment
1. Business
2. Information Technology
3. Economics
4. Education
5. Tourism
6. Industry
7. Fisheries
8. Engineering
9. Medicine
10. Politics
Your Experiences: Write your experiences in understanding the concepts and activity.
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Your Reflections: What difficulty, if there is, did you encounter in performing the
activity? How did you overcome them?
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Reference:
Mathigon – Applications of Mathematics. Retrieved from
https://mathigon.org/applications
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