Michaelan Apted

Kyle Edmondson
Calculus II
9 December 2014
Problems of the Week
Throughout this semester of calculus, I have analyzed and solved multiple mathematical
problems that involved unorthodox thinking. One of these problems was determining the chance
of having HIV in a man. In this problem, a man has a one in ten thousand chance of being HIV
positive. He takes a test that is only incorrect one in a thousand times. The test comes out
positive. I was tasked with calculating the chance that the test is correct, and he actually does
have HIV.
In order to solve this, I made a chart of all the possible outcomes and the average number
of people out of ten thousand who would receive this outcome. One person out of the ten
thousand would actually be HIV positive. Additionally, the test is incorrect one out of every
thousandth time. The chance that one person is HIV positive is one in ten thousand, so the
chance that any of the ten people falsely tested are positive is one in a thousand This means that
ten people would almost certainly be falsely tested positive. The remaining 9989 people are
irrelevant, because I am only concerned with those tested positive.
Of the eleven people tested positive, only one of them is actually truly HIV positive. This
means that the man tested HIV positive actually only has a 1/11, around 9%, chance of being
HIV positive.
I know this is at least close to the right answer, because dividing the chance of having
HIV by the chance of the test being false can give me a good estimate of the correct chance.
1/10,000 divided by 1/1,000 is 1/10, which is fairly close to 1/11. I understand this form of
thinking, because I can apply it to other problems. Even the most accurate test has a high chance
of being false if the chance of a result being true has a significant lower chance that the test is
correct.
I learned a lot in this semester of calculus. I understand how to solve limits and find
derivatives. However, all of that is meaningless if I cannot apply that to the real world. These
POWs utilized mathematical concepts in problems that can be seen in very real settings. These
problems were extremely difficult for me, because they involved thinking I wasnt used to. By
the time I actually solved something, I had gone through a long process of trial and error.
However, I came out with one unique way of tackling a problem and a new understanding of a
mathematical concept. Knowing basic mathematical concepts it one thing, but being able to use
critical thinking and apply those mathematical concepts to real world problems is a skill that I
will use for the entirety of my life.