4 ms·

Not sure I agree with that - you also have to take into account that calculus is a requirement for many other sciences. I suppose you could just of course make

Not sure I agree with that - you also have to take into account that calculus is a requirement for many other sciences. I suppose you could just of course make it a pre-req for things like that but I found that in highschool rarely did they go that deep. Physics becomes a hell of a lot easier with basic calculus for example. If anything should be dropped from a highschool level its all of the insane memorization you have to do for some of the lower level math classes - I found that totally useless. You then learn some basic calculus and realize "I just wasted so much of my life" and never need to memorize those things again.

JadeNB 5y ago
> If anything should be dropped from a highschool level its all of the insane memorization you have to do for some of the lower level math classes - I found that totally useless. You then learn some basic calculus and realize "I just wasted so much of my life" and never need to memorize those things again. What sort of memorizations do you have in mind that you no longer need to memorize once you know calculus?
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  s = ut + ½at²
- p1necone 5y ago
  Knowing the basics of integration/derivation makes all sorts of very common concepts in physics much more intuitive - velocity, acceleration, area etc.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Pretty much all the classic Newtonian formulae you memorize in high school physics classes can be derived (relatively) easily once you bring calculus in. A general problem with high school classes in particular--still somewhat true in certain university classes but much fewer--is that there are dependencies across classes. So you end up with a lot of "Memorize this thing because you don't have an advanced enough background to understand why $XYZ is the case."
  - mmmpop 5y ago
    In my high school experience, this was avoided if you had the desire and aptitude to just take Honors Physics instead. To work around the fact that many of us were still in precalc, our teacher just taught us the power rule, the relationship between slopes of tangent lines, etc., without diving into the "why" of why those things worked. That said, yeah maybe for the most basic of university of physics the whole "derive it on the fly" strategy works, I guess? But when you get to more advanced courses like mechanics of materials, you'll do yourself the favor and take to memorizing at least a few of the commonly used equations.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      For tests and the like, when I was an undergrad, it was fairly common to be able to bring in a one-page "cheat sheet." The idea was that you probably could derive a lot of the stuff given time and maybe references, but you almost certainly couldn't in a 1 hour exam in addition to solving the actual problems on the test.
      - mmmpop 5y ago
        >> 1 hour exam I'm trying to remember when I had one of those last! I actually don't love the idea of cheat-sheets but maaaybe if it's a cumulative final I could see it being helpful? If you're taking chapter exams on some material, I think you ought to have worked enough problems so that formulas/constants are drilled into your head. But I guess too, where do you draw the line at engineering appendices? I sure don't have the MoI of every common body memorized.
        JadeNB 5y ago
        > If you're taking chapter exams on some material, I think you ought to have worked enough problems so that formulas/constants are drilled into your head. Well, sure, but, if you don't, then what's the point of punishing you? As a teacher, frankly, I'd be happy to have my students bring in any static resources they wanted to consult—I say 'static' to emphasise not, e.g., consulting a cheating site, although it's fine with me if they've pre-compiled solutions in advance to any problems they think might be interesting or important—except that (1) I think that would encourage bad study habits, and, more importantly, (2) it would be unwieldy in a packed classroom to try to have adjacent people juggling multiple textbooks, notebooks, etc. In fact, I loved the freedom to give extended-time, fully open-book, open-note exams during the fully remote classes. I wish I could still do that; if cheating weren't so endemic under those conditions, then I would.
zozbot234 5y ago
Calculus is also a requirement for statistics and probability. You simply cannot meaningfully talk about the latter without referencing the former.
- wbsss4412 5y ago
  You can certainly make significant headway with some basic combinatorics and basic tables for things like the normal distribution, no calculus needed. This is in fact how most people currently learn statistics.
  - kjasdfj3 5y ago
    What happens when you dont have tables? In the land of the blind the guy with one eye walks everyone off a cliff.
    - tibbar 5y ago
      I mean no one integrates to find the area under subsections of the normal distribution because you have to use numerical methods for that anyway. And it only gets more complicated from there with chi-squared and various degrees of freedom etc. Tables are a perfectly fine way to deal with distributions…
    - novok 5y ago
      Most real life integrals and differential equations are not analytically solvable anyway, so you run into tables like you do with most real life applications of logarithms. What happens is you learn numerical approximation methods and then recreate the tables with human 'computers', like we used to do before electrical computers came into play. Or create mechanical analog computers like they did in the 1800s or greek times.
    - wbsss4412 5y ago
      That’s question is akin to someone saying what happens when you don’t have a calculator. Everyone has one in their pocket at all times. How would the typical person go about calculating the normal distribution by hand? Are we going to call everyone blind because they haven’t memorized e to arbitrary precision?

JadeNB 5y ago

> If anything should be dropped from a highschool level its all of the insane memorization you have to do for some of the lower level math classes - I found that totally useless. You then learn some basic calculus and realize "I just wasted so much of my life" and never need to memorize those things again. What sort of memorizations do you have in mind that you no longer need to memorize once you know calculus?

wizzwizz4 5y ago
s = ut + ½at²
p1necone 5y ago
Knowing the basics of integration/derivation makes all sorts of very common concepts in physics much more intuitive - velocity, acceleration, area etc.
ghaff 5y ago
Pretty much all the classic Newtonian formulae you memorize in high school physics classes can be derived (relatively) easily once you bring calculus in. A general problem with high school classes in particular--still somewhat true in certain university classes but much fewer--is that there are dependencies across classes. So you end up with a lot of "Memorize this thing because you don't have an advanced enough background to understand why $XYZ is the case."
- mmmpop 5y ago
  In my high school experience, this was avoided if you had the desire and aptitude to just take Honors Physics instead. To work around the fact that many of us were still in precalc, our teacher just taught us the power rule, the relationship between slopes of tangent lines, etc., without diving into the "why" of why those things worked. That said, yeah maybe for the most basic of university of physics the whole "derive it on the fly" strategy works, I guess? But when you get to more advanced courses like mechanics of materials, you'll do yourself the favor and take to memorizing at least a few of the commonly used equations.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    For tests and the like, when I was an undergrad, it was fairly common to be able to bring in a one-page "cheat sheet." The idea was that you probably could derive a lot of the stuff given time and maybe references, but you almost certainly couldn't in a 1 hour exam in addition to solving the actual problems on the test.
    - mmmpop 5y ago
      >> 1 hour exam I'm trying to remember when I had one of those last! I actually don't love the idea of cheat-sheets but maaaybe if it's a cumulative final I could see it being helpful? If you're taking chapter exams on some material, I think you ought to have worked enough problems so that formulas/constants are drilled into your head. But I guess too, where do you draw the line at engineering appendices? I sure don't have the MoI of every common body memorized.
      - JadeNB 5y ago
        > If you're taking chapter exams on some material, I think you ought to have worked enough problems so that formulas/constants are drilled into your head. Well, sure, but, if you don't, then what's the point of punishing you? As a teacher, frankly, I'd be happy to have my students bring in any static resources they wanted to consult—I say 'static' to emphasise not, e.g., consulting a cheating site, although it's fine with me if they've pre-compiled solutions in advance to any problems they think might be interesting or important—except that (1) I think that would encourage bad study habits, and, more importantly, (2) it would be unwieldy in a packed classroom to try to have adjacent people juggling multiple textbooks, notebooks, etc. In fact, I loved the freedom to give extended-time, fully open-book, open-note exams during the fully remote classes. I wish I could still do that; if cheating weren't so endemic under those conditions, then I would.

zozbot234 5y ago

Calculus is also a requirement for statistics and probability. You simply cannot meaningfully talk about the latter without referencing the former.

wbsss4412 5y ago
You can certainly make significant headway with some basic combinatorics and basic tables for things like the normal distribution, no calculus needed. This is in fact how most people currently learn statistics.
- kjasdfj3 5y ago
  What happens when you dont have tables? In the land of the blind the guy with one eye walks everyone off a cliff.
  - tibbar 5y ago
    I mean no one integrates to find the area under subsections of the normal distribution because you have to use numerical methods for that anyway. And it only gets more complicated from there with chi-squared and various degrees of freedom etc. Tables are a perfectly fine way to deal with distributions…
  - novok 5y ago
    Most real life integrals and differential equations are not analytically solvable anyway, so you run into tables like you do with most real life applications of logarithms. What happens is you learn numerical approximation methods and then recreate the tables with human 'computers', like we used to do before electrical computers came into play. Or create mechanical analog computers like they did in the 1800s or greek times.
  - wbsss4412 5y ago
    That’s question is akin to someone saying what happens when you don’t have a calculator. Everyone has one in their pocket at all times. How would the typical person go about calculating the normal distribution by hand? Are we going to call everyone blind because they haven’t memorized e to arbitrary precision?