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I've only maybe used differentiation/integration a few times in my professional career (use it more on personal projects actually). That said, having a solid
by nightski 4y ago
I've only maybe used differentiation/integration a few times in my professional career (use it more on personal projects actually). That said, having a solid intuition about first/second order derivatives, rates of change, is incredibly valuable when thinking about the world. I probably use this intuition quite a bit in day to day life without even realizing it. I do wish more probability & statistics was taught earlier on though.
- mkl95 4y agoI agree on the intuition. But once the intuition and the fundamentals are there, should teenagers spend months crunching calculus heuristics? It's still the way it's taught in Europe and it's incredibly inefficient.
- sarchertech 4y ago“Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.” —John von Neumann I’m sure there’s room for improvement, but intuition and understanding are usually the result of repetition.
- mkl95 4y agoIronically, if von Neumann was alive today he would probably encourage kids to use some number crunching software rather than "getting used to it". In that sense civilization may actually have regressed since the von Neumann / Feynman days. Ditching pen and paper for sophisticated computing tools gave us nuclear power and moon landings within 20 years.
- sarchertech 4y agoWould he? And no one is arguing that working engineers should be taking derivatives by hand.
- mr_toad 4y agoWho’s going to write the software if no one knows calculus?