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If you actually want to study math, you probably shouldn't touch calculus until you've take linear algebra and a fair amount of topology, since these are the tw
by ouid 5y ago
If you actually want to study math, you probably shouldn't touch calculus until you've take linear algebra and a fair amount of topology, since these are the two structures on sets that (differential) calculus is founded upon.
For other subjects, you can briefly substitute an intuition for the underlying structures with sufficient finesse in the presentation of the material (see the theory of knots and links, for an example), but calculus is not, in my experience, such a subject, and the early emphasis on it is harmful for the study of mathematics, which is supposedly what your list is for.
For some reason this is heresy, but I have honestly no idea how you are supposed to appreciate calculus from a mathematical perspective without being able to define the large stack of terms that constitute it. The situation is potentially different for a physicist, but if you want to study mathematics, the physical world is not the object of study, rather it is precisely the definitions that we have chosen.
- susanrigetti 5y agoThat’s what the real analysis course is usually for, and why it comes after linear algebra and algebra.
- ouid 5y agoIt also comes after many semesters of calculus, which depend upon it, and before any topology, which it depends on. Even if you are just interested in these things as tools for describing physical phenomena, there is value in placing mathematical knowledge in its natural structure.