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Calculus is the heart of applied mathematics, but US students aren’t prepared for it
American Thinker ^ | 11 Feb, 2025 | Molly Slag

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 ...


TOPICS: Education; Society
KEYWORDS: arth; astronomy; engineering; physics; science; stringtheory
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1 posted on 02/11/2025 4:13:51 AM PST by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

Most politicians can’t do maft.


2 posted on 02/11/2025 4:14:02 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

That’s a job requirement for Deep State’s hires...


3 posted on 02/11/2025 4:15:35 AM PST by mewzilla (Swing away, Mr. President, swing away!)
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To: MtnClimber

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.


4 posted on 02/11/2025 4:19:17 AM PST by 3RIVRS
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To: MtnClimber

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.


5 posted on 02/11/2025 4:26:44 AM PST by sasquatch (Do NOT forget Ashli Babbit! c/o piytar)
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To: 3RIVRS

Calculus1->slope
Calculus2->area
Calculus3->volume
DiffYQ -> nobody knows


6 posted on 02/11/2025 4:26:45 AM PST by jpsb
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To: MtnClimber

I wonder if the “new math” programs in K-8 are partially responsible for this.


7 posted on 02/11/2025 4:32:10 AM PST by Maine Mariner
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To: MtnClimber

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.


8 posted on 02/11/2025 4:34:53 AM PST by shotgun
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To: 3RIVRS

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.


9 posted on 02/11/2025 4:38:13 AM PST by Don@VB (THE NEW GREEN DEAL IS JUST THE OLD RED DEAL)
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To: 3RIVRS

“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.


10 posted on 02/11/2025 4:38:31 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz (Privatize the administrative state!)
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To: MtnClimber

“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.


11 posted on 02/11/2025 4:42:40 AM PST by BobL
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To: 3RIVRS

“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.


12 posted on 02/11/2025 4:45:32 AM PST by BobL
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To: jpsb

yep


13 posted on 02/11/2025 4:46:05 AM PST by caprock (from the flats of SE New Mexico)
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To: MtnClimber
"Unless young students learn the predicate mathematics for calculus, our nation will grind to a halt."

The pain and pleasure associated with 'hedonistic calculus' should be reasonably balanced to the extent that doing the right thing is only common sense.
14 posted on 02/11/2025 4:46:14 AM PST by equaviator (If 60 is the new 40 then 35 must be the new 15.)
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To: 3RIVRS
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.

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".

15 posted on 02/11/2025 4:46:25 AM PST by Migraine
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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.


16 posted on 02/11/2025 4:46:26 AM PST by F450-V10
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To: 3RIVRS

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😂


17 posted on 02/11/2025 4:47:37 AM PST by blitz128
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To: shotgun

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.


18 posted on 02/11/2025 4:48:25 AM PST by okkev68
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To: MtnClimber

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.


19 posted on 02/11/2025 4:48:55 AM PST by MeanWestTexan (Sometimes There Is No Lesser Of Two Evils)
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To: BobL

Most are attorneys...they don’t do math...beyond the basics...add, subtract, multiply and divide. Their forte is reading and writing.


20 posted on 02/11/2025 4:48:58 AM PST by Sacajaweau
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