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> College level science and engineering education doesn’t make sense without a understanding of at least basic calculus. That doesn't actually mean that you ne

by tzs 3y ago

> College level science and engineering education doesn’t make sense without a understanding of at least basic calculus. That doesn't actually mean that you need to cover calculus in high school. The calculus needed for the first year of college science and engineering can be easily taught early in the first year in the classes that need it. That's how it worked at Caltech when I was a student (late '70s and early '80s). Around 75% of an incoming class had no calculus. It only took a lecture or two in Phys 1 to cover all the calculus that would be needed for the rest of first year science and engineering. That calculus taught in Phys 1 wasn't rigorous and proof based, but high school calculus usually isn't either. By second year everyone had a year of Ma 1, which was rigorous and proof based calculus.

fooker 3y ago
You need some time for the insights from new topics to become ingrained. For computer science, imagine learning about logic gates and VLSI in the same year.
guidoism 3y ago
I’m curious as to how calculus is used in those fields. I got a degree in CS and we had to take a bunch of calculus classes but never used it in any of our CS classes and in my 20+ years of programming jobs I’ve never had to use it. Any time in my professional career that I needed math I didn’t know I learned just enough of it to solve my problem and promptly forgot it. I absolutely could not tell you how to mechanically do stuff to derivatives and integrals. This question is relevant to me because we are deciding what to teach our kids and I haven’t yet been able to come up with a good argument for why to spend time gaining the skill of pen and paper mechanical calculus algorithms. Are there professional scientists or engineers out there that do calculus on paper?
- fooker 3y ago
  >Are there professional scientists or engineers out there that do calculus on paper? Yes.

by tzs 3y ago

fooker 3y ago

You need some time for the insights from new topics to become ingrained. For computer science, imagine learning about logic gates and VLSI in the same year.

guidoism 3y ago

I’m curious as to how calculus is used in those fields. I got a degree in CS and we had to take a bunch of calculus classes but never used it in any of our CS classes and in my 20+ years of programming jobs I’ve never had to use it. Any time in my professional career that I needed math I didn’t know I learned just enough of it to solve my problem and promptly forgot it. I absolutely could not tell you how to mechanically do stuff to derivatives and integrals. This question is relevant to me because we are deciding what to teach our kids and I haven’t yet been able to come up with a good argument for why to spend time gaining the skill of pen and paper mechanical calculus algorithms. Are there professional scientists or engineers out there that do calculus on paper?

fooker 3y ago
>Are there professional scientists or engineers out there that do calculus on paper? Yes.