Article
Understanding the generation time for COVID-19
How long does it take for one person to infect another?
Article
Parabolati
A beautiful argument to show that all parabolae are similar.
Article
How to work out doubling time
The doubling time for the Omicron variant seems to be scarily fast. But how do you calculate it?
Article
Maths in a minute: QALYs
What's a quality adjusted life year, or QALY?
Article
Pandemics and psychology
Can you capture people's behaviour in epidemiological models?
Article
Maths in a Minute: Turbulence and the Reynolds number
How does a smooth flow suddenly become turbulent? The Reynolds number helps understand the transition.
Article
Life on the beach with Markov chains
Markov chains are exceptionally useful tools for calculating probabilities, and they might increase your chance of getting to the beach!
Article
Maths in a Minute: Fluid dynamics and the Euler equations
How does water, or indeed any fluid, move? The Euler equations let us look beneath the surface and mark the beginning of modern fluid dynamics.
Article
Solving crimes with maths: Bloodstain pattern analysis
Some basic trigonometry can deliver vital evidence from the scene of a crime.
Article
Solving crimes with maths: Busting criminal networks
A bit of graph theory can help to identify key players in a criminal network.
Article
Reckoning with R: What will happen over autumn and winter?
Should we again reduce our social contacts? Is vaccinating 12-to-15-year-olds effective? What about boosters? The ready reckoner helps provide some answers.
Article
Five tools to explain something technical
There are many ways of explaining technical ideas, and using a range of strategies can give the most intuitive understanding.