So what was it today with maths? Oh yes, I needed to find out how long will it take me to get to my new client. But let's start from the beginning...

Today it's my story and how maths helps me. I tutor maths, so you'd say I might need to calculate more things. But if you substitute my tuition services, here we go, anyone might need to get to their new client at a certain time and need to know when do they need to leave, right?

For various reasons I commute to my local clients on bike. Recently I got myself a rocket bike, so besides the fact, I'm not so exhausted while cruising through London-Surrey hilly landscape, I also know roughly how fast am I in average. It's 12 mph. Thank you, rocket bike with smart display =) (I still need to pedal, though, if someone would be curious about it...)

Google with its maps says a lot about cycling and time spent by commuting, but I know it was never really accurate, either I cycle too slow or google thinks cyclist race all the time.
I knew the client is 7 miles away, my average speed is 12 mph, how long will it take me to get there? (I was curious about the actual time spent on the bike, not including unlocking at home and locking back at the end of my journey there.)
Classic maths word problem, hmm? Just this time from real world =)

Having a scientific calculator is a great thing - I still prefer actual calculator than any phone/computer calculators. It's a strong habit. But you can see what did I do with it - a matter of few seconds... Simply find what part (fraction) of the hourly speed do you really need - by dividing 7 by 12, as I was wondering what part of 12 is 7? It is 0.5833333... which isn't really helpful, right? So here's why do I prefer a real calculator - press the "degrees" button and it'll change such weird recurring number into 35 minutes exactly - that's worth the effort to turn the calculator on, isn't it? =)

Of course, it all could be done without it, but why not to do stuff quickly, when you can.

Well, now I know it should take me 35 minutes to get there because this timing is based on my real average speed which reflects also usual traffic in the areas where I cycle.

Might be worth to mention, that the day before I was supposed to meet my new student, I burnt my hand, so I couldn't cycle and at the end, and I took bus instead... there are some things which even maths cannot calculate accurate... But most of the time I find it very helpful =)