Mathematicians are fascinated by the elegance and beauty of the ideas behind mathematical theories. Their personal stories are equally important and interesting as their discoveries.
Prof. dr. ir. Hans Heesterbeek, one of the leading infectious disease epidemiologists in the Netherlands, is a busy man. Fortunately for us, Hans Heesterbeek had a gap in his schedule to yet again answer some questions, this time not asked by professional journalists, but by us, four students from the Technical University in Eindhoven.
Numbers are just amazing, as a child numbers are one the first things you learn. You try to count as far as possible, the first goal is to reach 10, then 20, then 50, finally you reach 100. Thanks to our computers you can find many cool things about large numbers!
In the past few years, I have been involved in several projects concerning mathematical education in Africa.
I was advised that a good place to start, if I wanted to explore the African mathematical landscape, was AIMS. That’s the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, or the African Institute for Minimising Sleep, as the students I met liked to call it when they were overwhelmed by assignments.
