Summary:
Associate Professor David Wilson describes how studying mathematics has given him an exciting career working on important research projects with public health officials and scientists around the world.
He believes that mathematics is a beautiful, elegant language that can be used as a powerful tool to describe the world around us and that his knowledge of maths - an important life skill - helps him to think about any problem he encounters in everyday life.
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Associate Professor David Wilson: Is maths really useful in the real world?
Of course, we can see how arithmetic and counting is useful when we go shopping; and trigonometry could be useful for architects,
for example; but is there any point to learning complicated algebra and calculus?
Why is every high school student subjected to trying to get their head around solving abstract equations with x's and y's that seem so meaningless for everyday life?
I believe that mathematics is essential for understanding the real world.
I am an applied mathematician and I use calculus and algebra every day.
Currently, I work at the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research and I carry out research on HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and sexually transmissible infections.
I use mathematics to understand the spread of infectious diseases in populations and to determine the public health interventions and
policies that are going to be the most effective in controlling epidemics.
I've been fortunate to work with many people around the world and use mathematics to guide decision-making or implementation of
strategies for improving the health of populations of people.
Since the early 1980s, tens of millions of people around the world have become infected with HIV and died as a result.
Every year, about three million people contract the virus and two million people die from HIV- or AIDS-related disease.
Currently, there is no vaccine or cure for this virus.
Despite the fact that we have known for many years how the virus spreads from person to person, and have drugs to keep people alive
for longer, we have been unable to control this worldwide pandemic.
Even in Australia, where we have some of the best resources in the world for dealing with the epidemic, over the last 10 years we have
seen significant rises in the rate of new HIV infections.
And the problem is substantially worse in developing countries in Africa or in Southeast Asia.
Some of the most important public health questions that need addressing are as follows:
Which population groups are the most at risk for contracting HIV?
What are the most important factors and behaviours related to new infections?
How many new infections and deaths can we expect to see in the future?
What will be the impact on the epidemic of a change in policy or intervention that changes behaviour or clinical practice by doctors?
And, which strategy is going to be the most effective in reducing infections and deaths?
The answers to these questions are not simple and are different in every country.
This is where mathematics has been very useful.
To address these problems, sophisticated mathematical models can be developed.
The mathematical equations are created to describe the very detailed risk-related behaviour associated with the spread of infection.
This might be sexual behaviour and include the mixing patterns of a population of people.
It could include the choice of particular sexual partner, the number of partners that people have, and the frequency and type of sexual
activity that people partake in, and whether a type of protection is used.
The equations may also include other routes of exposure, such as, spread among injecting drug users or from HIV-infected pregnant women to their unborn or infant child.
Associated with each type of interaction, there is well- established biological information about the likelihood of the virus transmitting
and this is described in the equations with probabilities.
Equations can also be created to describe the disease progression and health outcomes in a population of infected people.
When the mathematics is applied to a particular population and, if it is informed by appropriate data, then it can reproduce and describe
the past of an epidemic and explain why it has evolved the way it has.
By understanding the present, we can use the mathematical models to forecast into the future to predict what is going to happen with the
epidemic if people and programs continue to act and respond in the same way.
But the equations can also be used to investigate what would happen in the future if conditions change due to differences in the
population, or changes in the behaviour of people, or, if certain biomedical interventions are implemented in new ways.
Analysing the results helps to demonstrate which strategies and policies will be the most effective for reducing the number of new
infections and deaths, and it helps planning for the care and treatment of infected people.
To solve these problems, it is essential that I have a good grounding in algebra, calculus, some statistical techniques, and also computer programming.
Some of the mathematics can be solved using pen and paper, just like I solved maths problems in high school, and other times the
mathematics can only be solved by large supercomputers.
The applied nature of my research leads me to work with diverse people from many different disciplines and from all walks of life.
I enjoy working with biologists, doctors, social scientists, public health researchers, community and activist groups, and also policy makers.
It's tremendously satisfying to observe the work that I do influence change in public health strategy or program implementation.
Ultimately, my research attempts to prevent devastating health outcomes among large groups of vulnerable people.
Success can be measured by hopefully seeing decreases in the statistics that monitor the number of people who acquire infections,
but much more importantly, it is observed by witnessing individual people remaining healthy and able to continue to live their normal lives.
It's also a tremendous privilege to conduct this work with people in amazing and diverse countries around the world.
Mathematics can be applied not only to infectious diseases, but to all sorts of medical applications, to improve industrial processes, or to
elucidate our understanding of essentially anything you can think of in the physical world.
Mathematics is a beautiful and elegant language that can be used as a powerful tool to describe the world around us.
But, of course, not everyone will use complex mathematics in their everyday life or job.
But that does not mean complicated maths should not be taught in high school.
Rather, it is highly valuable to study maths.
This is because mathematics is a different way of thinking about a problem.
Studying maths trains the mind to think in a way which enables better logical and analytical problem solving.
I always enjoyed mathematics, but throughout school I was not taught how it could be used practically.
I was fortunate enough to receive foundational skills and then to have found my career niche, where I can use mathematics in a way
that is enjoyable and practical in the real world.
A life in mathematics has taken me to work with public health officials and scientists around the world, the World Health Organisation and United Nations.
It has also enabled me to have a brief stint as a consultant for the TV show, 'NUMB3RS', and for 'National Geographic'.
But I also know that studying maths gave me an important life skill.
It also assists me as I think about any problem in everyday life, whether I use an equation or not.
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