Posted on 02/11/2025 4:13:51 AM PST by MtnClimber
Unless young students learn the predicate mathematics for calculus, our nation will grind to a halt.
While Democrats focus on the liberal arts, which train students to be leftist activists beginning in grade school, it is the STEM studies that keep America functioning. As students ascend that ladder of mathematical logic, calculus becomes central to their ability to maintain our systems and invent new ones. Sadly, though, our schools are failing students, not just in teaching calculus but in teaching everything preceding calculus.
It is widely recognized among today’s undergraduates that the STEM field is at once among the most rewarding and the most challenging, promising well-compensated employment in the future while also demanding devotion and consistent concentration in the present.
A principal source of the demanding nature of the STEM curriculum is its solid mathematical core, the centerpiece of which is calculus, a cause of both delight and frustration for generations of college students.
Calculus, the mathematical analysis of change of continuous functions, was invented in the late 17th century by both Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, who were working independently of each other. Because Newton’s notational system was awkward and inconvenient, whereas the Leibniz notational system was intuitively appealing and easy to use, it is the Leibniz notation system that is in use today.
Because of the hierarchical structure of the topics in STEM, in which mathematics explains computer science and physics, physics explains chemistry, and chemistry explains biology, calculus finds itself cast in the role of the gatekeeper to STEM. And with that gatekeeper role in mind it would be highly illuminating to be a mouse in the corner of the first quarter college calculus classroom as the professor brings the daily class to a close.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Most politicians can’t do maft.
That’s a job requirement for Deep State’s hires...
I remember my early Calculus days in college early 80s. My problem was I could do the math, but I never really understood what it meant.
The engineering curriculum at CU required calculus coincident with classical physics. At times the calc. classes were behind the needs of physics. Interesting times.
Had one course in partial differential equations. The take home final posed a problem with no solution. The right answer was to prove it.
Calculus1->slope
Calculus2->area
Calculus3->volume
DiffYQ -> nobody knows
I wonder if the “new math” programs in K-8 are partially responsible for this.
All algebraic equations and mathematical formulas were derived from calculus. The US was built using applied math and engineering up until the Soviets launched Sputnik. US colleges and universities then switched to theoretical engineering.
I am a Professional Engineer with a BS civil engineering and have never needed to use calculus on any project that I have worked on in 34 years.
It came in handy if you had a 20 Ft inverted conical water tank leaking in your backyard at 2 1/2 Gal per minute and your neighbor wanted to know when the water level would be 10 Ft.
“I remember my early Calculus days in college early 80s. My problem was I could do the math, but I never really understood what it meant.”
That was the same for me. I understood the question, provided the answer, but I had no clue how it is applied in real life situations. All it really did was help me get a better understanding of the process when I took Statistics.
“Most politicians can’t do maft.”
In the UK they now cannot even spell it correctly - they call it “maths”, like some Third Worlder just learning English. That’s how far they’ve declined.
“I remember my early Calculus days in college early 80s. My problem was I could do the math, but I never really understood what it meant.”
Pretty much the same for all ‘maths’ (a little UK lingo), you find out what it means after you can do it. If you try to understand it first, you’ll never learn it.
Needless to say, the Left flipped the above sequencing, just to achieve their goal of preventing the White Boy from learning.
yep
Maybe someone on here can give an example of a calculus problem that illustrates "what is the point of the discipline that makes it different from algebra or trig".
I struggled with calculus in college. But one of the happiest events of myl life was getting a 99, the high score, on a calculus test after we were introduced to phi.
Took three qrts of calc, never understood what it was for.
Was having an issue and asked friends dad who was a civil engineer and he said I have no idea, got this thick book that basically showed the answer. That was in 1980
Imagine today you want to build a bridge you plug in specifications and design pops out.
Theoretical perhaps, but practical …. Agree need someone to explain that to me.
Of all I learned a squared +b squared=c squared is the most I have ever used.
Have never needed to solve any other polynomial or factor an equation since college😂
Ha. Same here. BS in M.E. and have never once used calculus in over 30 years. Lots of trig, mechanics, and finance though. To be fair though, I have spent over half my career in a technical sales/manager role.
In 1979 the USA had the best schools in the world.
This dropped to #17 today.
Jimmy Carter started the department of education in 1879.
Most are attorneys...they don’t do math...beyond the basics...add, subtract, multiply and divide. Their forte is reading and writing.
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