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The Mathematics Of Gossip, Jessica Deters, Izabel P. Aguiar, Jacquie Feuerborn
The Mathematics Of Gossip, Jessica Deters, Izabel P. Aguiar, Jacquie Feuerborn
CODEE Journal
How does a lie spread through a community? The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to provide an educational tool for teaching Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) and sensitivity analysis through a culturally relevant topic (fake news), and to examine the social justice implications of misinformation. Under the assumption that people are susceptible to, can be infected with, and recover from a lie, we model the spread of false information with the classic Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model. We develop a system of ODEs with lie-dependent parameter values to examine the pervasiveness of a lie through a community.
The model presents the opportunity …