Public Lectures

Rabbits, Foxes and Mathematical Modelling

Speaker

A/P Pang Yu Hin

Description

We have all heard the saying that “population grows exponentially.” Obviously this is not happening in Singapore these days. Consider the care-free world of rabbits. Do rabbits grow exponentially? Introduce some foxes among the rabbits (foxes eat rabbits, you know). How would you expect the populations of foxes (predator) and rabbits (prey) to behave? One can attempt to model the ensuing population dynamics using simple mathematics. This is what I want to discuss in this workshop. I will start with the very primitive Lotka-Volterra mathematical model (1920s) and touch on some of my own recent work (also pretty primitive) in this area. I will show how the models can be implemented on a spreadsheet (Excel), which is an interesting and beneficial way to bring simple IT into mathematical modelling.

Material

Power Point File

Audience

Secondary School Teachers

Date

24 July 04 (Sat), 9.30am — 12nn

Venue

LT25, Faculty of Science, NUS

Course Fees

FREE