Further applicability of maths

Yesterday's entry, on second reading, seemed a little bit self-satisfied, an overdue vindication that maths can actually be useful and therefore a call to the world that here is some proof that maths is useful. I'd love to say that I won't do it again but my entry title for today has already given the game away.

Reading through the literature for the review I am currently undertaking, I came across this short paper: Lie Group Analysis Applied to a HIV Transmission Model. The subject of AIDS and HIV is an interesting one in many respects, not least of all in challenging mathematicians to come up with models that describe how the viruses develop through geographical areas etc. The paper above takes one such, complicated (though) well-regarded model and applies the symmetry methods that I am studying in order to solve the model. The explicit general solution that is found using this method was then compared with epidemiologic data available on the incidence of HIV-infection and AIDS in some populations of American males and was found to be a close match to it. Which is to say that the mathematical model for HIV-infection and AIDS gave a relatively acurrate description of the actual incidence of HIV and AIDS in a given area.

As a prospective mathematician, it is my duty to defend the worthiness of my subject; I hope that examples such as the ones presented above and yesterday go some way to convincing the sceptical reader of the importance of mathematical research.