That's A Wrap!

In this issue of Consortium, we start a series of Henry's Notes that concern the interaction between a real-world situation and the mathematics we use to deal with it. Often, the question involves the accuracy with which the situation is described, and the consequent accuracy of the results of the mathematical model.

Sometimes, we get the accuracy that we think we deserve, but at other times the results will surprise us by being worse-or even much better-than we might have any reason to expect. What we will do is look first at specific examples, which can typically be done with traditional school mathematics. We will then look for explanations of why the examples come out the way they do. Often, these explanations will involve calculus.