For those who cannot see the practical application of differential equations and the mathematically inclined.

I also realize this will probably appeal to no one here, but hey, here it is.

After having a number of arguments with my roommate about why he should buy at least 1 24 pack of Dew for the room a month, I finally got sick of it and modeled the situation mathematically for him.

My own consumption is sinusoidal. At least once a week I will need a copious amount of Dew to keep myself going (major project, big homework assignment ,test, etc.), and therefore I peak at 5 cans in one evening. Once a week also I'll be out for the majority of the day and will only consume one can per evening.

My roommate is only really around for a few days a week, but he consumes a large, constant amount of Dew while he's around. He's modeled by a Heaviside function (the "on-off" function) multiplied by a constant (4).

The final differential equation does not include random people who come in and take dew without asking. Bastards.

Every week we start off with two 24-packs of Mt. Dew, bought by me at Wal-Mart. Every week, we consume a total of 31 cans. He has consumed 8.

At any rate, I put a touch of work into this, and found it interesting. I hope others will too.