Calculus in Higher Education

I took a year of calculus in university, but I don't remember 95% of it.

Just what is calculus good for outside of engineering, CS, and physics?

--Waiting for a brilliant math major to shut me down with a well-written response.

engineering, CS, and physics? 

I don't know how you play counterstrike, but i leave calculus out of it. ;D

Economics, biology, agricultural planning, chemistry, statistics, etc.

You're right that it isn't as common elsewhere as in physics and engineering, but shreds of it can be found all over the place.

downage/dbullets * dbullets/dtime = downage/dtime

>>1
   Remember Taylor Series?  Whenever a computer (or calculator) graphs a function, calculates an exponent, computers the sine or cosine of something, etc. it is using a Taylor Series expansion of that function.
   Other areas that use Calculus (and/or Trigonometry) are Astrophysics, Television (broadcast), Acoustics [and thus the music industry], Traffic Control (using related rates), Marketing, and many others.
   Much of the math used is hidden by computers and machines.  It is indeed rare that we knowingly use calculus to solve everyday problems, but the fact is that we do.
   If this does not quite satisfy your desire for an answer, let me know.  I am a mathematics major and love the subject.

Good enough.  I was kinda hoping for something that would make me cry out for forgiveness to $MATHEMATICS_DEITY for not remembering Calc, though. ;)

>>1 Same here, although I actually found it decently interesting to try to retain. Calculus is useful every now and then, even outside of my compsci major. Then again, I like math in general...

Now freshman english class.... what was that crap all about? =X

>>8 Despite the fact that I was talking about uni?

Im sorry but your "brilliant MATH Major" will not come. These days math majors (which would lead to becomming a math professor) comes from other countries and MOST US students dont elect to become math majors. To keep it real its just not a satisfying or a stable job nowadays to be a mathematics professor. A majority of kids hates math with a passion ever asking the cliche question of "what is this good for."  So day in day out you see these kids take this class just to jump the hoop and like thet example of the opening thread, no one remembers it. Its usually a job for the foreign nations now to teach us math... isnt that weird? To be able to teach math without technically using proper english.
What math is supposed to do is help you think of a problem, with multiple ways of answering this problem and picking one. Once one method is picked remembering certian laws to consider and comming up with the correct answer. This in turn leads to real life situations in which multiple ideas come together with the help of certian parameters to fix a certain person's problem (in which the correct answer deals in accordance to a person's set morals). Oh and just so we can be good with numbers (2+3=5 and shit). Thread #5 stated the obvious. Hope that helped.
Oh and im a Chemistry major soon to branch out to business, philosophy and some language (spanish or latin... still up in the air). But whatever, most will probably get bored reading.

>>10
You complain about math majors (I think). I complain about the illegibility of your post.

paragraphs capitalisation and punctuation plz

>>5
Yes, knowing the taylor series is bound to come in useful when Kurt Russell destroys all electronic devices on earth (probably with his awful acting) and we have to start from scratch again.

>>12
Many problems stem from the fact that programmers, and others who use calculus, do not understand what it is actually doing.  It is problems such as not knowing that a computer approximates values, or that (in the world of physics and chemistry) certain formulas apply to specific units only (remember the probe that crashed into Mars?).

>>10
You seem quite jaded.  I will agree with you for the most part, but I assert that this is not true for all students.  I find that many of my peers who are "pure math majors" love the subject for what it is, where as those who are "math education majors" dispise it.  I find that latter fact sad.  I personally feel that much of the animosity toward math in this country (the USA) is a result of such teachers, as well as these national standards and "correct methods of teaching" that are imposed on them.  We need to realize that we have a problem, and we need to deal with it.
   There is one thing that I will disagree with you on, and that is that math is only useful in terms of problem solving skills.  The idea that a student should memorize formulas and simply regergitate them on demand in bullshit.  While the majority of applications of math are simply the use of formulas, the true nature of the subject is much more.  I feel that it is an atrocity that it is considered proper to simply have students memorize without understanding.

I still find it rather humorous when the person at the register in a store can`t make correct change. They were invariably someone who in Middle/High School most likely said "what good is math anyway?" But math has litterally millions of practical uses in today`s world.

An example that affect almost everyone... gas mileage. Math can save you gas, which saves you money, and everyone likes money, right? Graph your average RPM against your speed in both overdrive and drive (or in several gears for a standard shift.) Overlay the graphs and plot the minimum of them all over the range of speeds. Repeat for varying degrees of required torque (like going uphill). Now you know how to drive to save gas. Just follow the graph.

>>15 To continue... remember a little more about math through physics and you`ll find a few more tricks. Quick acceleration, through a nifty bit of math, is shown to be effective to save gas over a decent length of road. Rev it hard up to 55-60 and then cruise control it. Actually saves more gas than accelerating slowly and then speeding 70 the whole way. Graph time vs average rpm to see for yourself.

Math is cool. You end up knowing a lot of things that no one else ever will. Learn it. Love it.

The question asks what good math is outside engineering, CS, and physics. Yet arn't these parts of everyday life?

I live in a secluded cabin in Montana. The only engineering I need are some wires and C4.

Aborn!

>>17

Calculus specifically, not math.  Of course math is useful.

>>5

The thing is that the people using the machines are abstracted from the math going on inside.  Therefore only the engineers that built them actually need to know the calculus.  He was asking who would need to know outside of engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists

>>18
 lol the unabomber had a phd in mathematics from harvard

the people using the machines are abstracted from the math going on inside

Whoa.

... I know Kung Fu.

programmers usually need and know approximately zero "real" math.  That's why we need the electro-engineers to build us chips and program the solid code.
I'm a programmer who likes math in a way, but it depresses me how few they teach us and how few i can actually use in programming (aside from spare time programming)

ees are nuts, signal processing and quantization matrices...

bridge between mathematic principle and implementation in the physical world
knowing high level programming languages is an entirely seperate skill

Depends what you program. Many of the most interesting jobs in the software field involve large amounts of math. Generally these are the one working along the cutting edge (in CS or otherwise).

Of course, getting one of those jobs is no easy task. ;_;

>>5
Power series only behave well at small distances from the center of the expansion. Generally, it will only converge while the distance from the center of the expansion is less than the distance from the center to the first singularity in the complex plane. Globally convergent series, like those for trigonometric functions, tend to converge very slowly for larger values of the argument.
To remedy this state of affairs, there are numerous methods of evaluating "special functions"; these include, but are not limited to, least squares rational approximants (derived automatically by Remez algorithms), continued fraction expansions, root-solving (e.g. Lambert's W function), direct integration of differential equations (not uncommon for hypergeometric functions), and functional relations between different values of the arguments (common with orthogonal polynomials). Power series are nothing like a magic bullet for the evaluation of functions.

Calculus is a pre-requisite in most universities for applied high level statistics courses. You may not use the calculus often, (some engineers rarely do integration) but the statistics are used in science, IT, business, political polls, etc. etc.

CS? U MEAN COUNTER STRIEK?
LOL

CS? U MEAN COUNTER STRIEK?
LOL

sage for CS

N-N-N-N-NECRO'D

N-N-N-N-NECRO'D

calc. is used by our minds every day as second nature when we drive, when we play video games, ect... when you analyze it.

Wow, what a fags, math is for nerds lel

uh lets think, economics bitch