Mathematics ... the way to finding the best drive in the car

Mathematician Ed Southall helps Mazda show that crunching the numbers provides the perfect day out in the car

A MOTOR manufacturer has used the mathematical mind of a University of Huddersfield lecturer to show that facts and figures can add up to the perfect drive.

Ed Southall is the maths education specialist at the University’s teacher training department  and has a growing global reputation for the brain-teasing puzzles that he publishes in book form and posts on the Internet.

This meant that when Mazda needed a maths wizard for an advertising campaign, it recruited Ed for a sequence of short films featuring the new MX-5 roadster.  These have now begun to appear online.

The concept was to identify the UK’s best drive and to do so in contrasting ways.  The advert is billed as “the ultimate battle of science versus art”.

Travel photographer Dan Carter’s brief was to select his route by poring over pictures, while Ed was furnished with a raft of hard data covering factors such as traffic levels, weather and road usage at different time times of day and year. 

In the first of the commercials, he is seen crunching the numbers that led him to select a B-road in one of the North of England’s National Parks.  The location will be revealed in future instalments when he is seen travelling his chosen route in a Mazda… and the experience fully vindicated Ed’s faith in the power of maths.

“The data took me to a road that I had never driven before and it turned out to be absolutely beautiful,” he said.

Ed Southall’s books include 2017’s Yes, but why? Teaching for understanding in mathematics and a collection of 53 puzzles titled Geometry Snacks.

He is a prolific setter of puzzles – using them as teaching tool at both school and university level – and regularly posts them on his Twitter feed, where they are proving very popular.  Earlier this year he posted a deceptively simple pink triangle inside a square, accompanied by the question: “What fraction is shaded?”.  It went viral, attracting solution from around the world.

As a teacher, Ed’s philosophy is to emphasise the processes behind maths rather than simply learning them by rote.  He also highlights that there are multiple approaches available to arrive at a solution and that they are all equally valid.

“When we are teaching maths we all too often promote our solution without exploring any other ones,” he says.

A second volume of Geometry Snacks is due to appear later this year.