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A basic introduction to the most powerful tools in science and engineering.

At the beginning of an epidemic the number of infected people grows exponentially. But why does the number e appear in descriptions of this growth?

To work out how a disease will spread you need to know the time between infections.

How can we use mathematics to model the spread of a disease?

The doubling time of a disease is the time it takes for the number of cases of the disease to double. How do you calculate it?

What is the growth rate and what does it tell us about an epidemic?

What is herd immunity and what does it have to do with a number called R?

The word "algorithm" has probably got more usage over the last few years than it has in its entire history. But what exactly is an algorithm?

What do we mean when we say that something grows exponentially?