With the recent scare of a so-called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)-like virus called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS – CoV) which so far has unknown origins and has a surprising mortality rate of 47.6%, I began to wonder about the complexity of epidemics and the mathematics behind epidemics. It was then that research led me to understand that it was possible to model epidemics using calculus. As a pathophobe, I have always been intrigued and scared of diseases: I constantly read the statistics regarding different diseases, examining how they spread and calculating the chances that any of them could ever infect me or any of my loved ones. So when the opportunity arose to do a mathematical exploration, I thought it would be interesting to examine the mathematics behind the spread of disease. The purpose of this exploration is to investigate and examine an epidemic model and then attempt to apply it to a scenario and determine whether it is a realistic and accurate model. The Initial Model Although epidemic modeling depends on a variety of factors, which will be discussed later (such as the type of disease and its rate of spread), the initial model takes into account the main factors to produce a simplistic model. First, the initial model takes into account the basic assumptions listed below“1. SIR: All individuals fall into one of the following categories: Susceptible: those who can contract the disease. Infectious: those who can spread the disease. Removed: those who are immune and cannot spread the disease2. The population is large, confined to a well-defined region. One might imagine the population to be a large university during the semester, when relatively few trips abroad are made. The popular......paper center......culty of the University of Iowa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). September 3, 2013. September 3, 2013 .Department of Statistics, Columbia University. Introduction to epidemic modeling. Unknown Unknown Unknown. August 28, 2013 .KidsHealth. Chickenpox. Unknown Unknown Unknown. September 1, 2013 .World maps. Population Mexico (Poblacion de Mexico]). Unknown Unknown Unknown. September 2, 2013. University of Iowa School of Mathematics. Using calculus to model epidemics. Unknown Unknown Unknown. August 24th 2013 .