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Few people have to use calculus or advanced probability or number theory, but everyone relies on it. The article missed this point. Need some examples? Public
by jostmey 10y ago
Few people have to use calculus or advanced probability or number theory, but everyone relies on it. The article missed this point.
Need some examples? Public key cryptography, machine learning, physics simulations of the aerodynamic properties of an airplane. I could go on and on. Just because a vast majority of the population never has to think about how this stuff works does not imply that it is somehow useless. We would not be where we are today without all this mathematics.
- mjfl 10y agoI totally agree. I feel like this argument is the equivalent of saying "I'll never need to learn linear programming, I'll just plug it into lpSolve" "I'll never need to learn cryptography, I'll just use the Unix libraries" "I'll never need to know thermodynamics, my car just works!" "Google just works!" At some point somebody had to be the person that figured out all these things so the other 99% of people can use it and not think about it ever. And I'd much rather be the person solving the interesting problems than the person using the tools without truly understanding them to solve more mundane (but still probably useful and important) tasks, but that is just my personal taste.