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To: FredZarguna

There are indeed many applications for Calculus but almost everyone I know working in a field that requires calculus, even intense and daily use of calculus has software for the math. They are paid to think, plank an manage not calculate.
I was an honors, straight A kind of student. I even loved math until I got the 7th grade teacher from hell who ruined it and I never recovered the love even though I was still quite capable and proficient at it. I went back and forth on a future career, everything from Archaeologist, Physicist to Stock Broker. When I took Calculus in high school after the first few weeks I realized that even if I became a physicist I would never use this. If I became a physics professor and was teaching I would use it but when it comes time to fire up the super-collider, Jimmy John ain’t ciphering that by hand. Do computers break, do you have Apollo 13 moments? Yes, but that doesn’t mean you build an education and waste valuable classroom time based on that scenario.


82 posted on 12/19/2017 5:14:30 PM PST by azcap (Who is John Galt ? www.conservativeshirts.com)
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To: azcap

You’re sort of right, I have software such a Mathematica that will do some of the “grunt work” of Calculus. However if I hadn’t had Calculus I wouldn’t know how to set the problem up for Mathematica let alone interpret the results. In short it can’t think for me.

By the way there is some good “math software” out there thats free. It’s very powerful - Google “computer algebra system Maxima (or Reduce)”. There are probably others out there by these are free and impressive!


85 posted on 12/19/2017 5:31:12 PM PST by Reily
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To: azcap

As a retired Physicist, let me assure you that you couldn’t be more wrong. I used Calculus literally every day in my research.


130 posted on 12/19/2017 7:34:51 PM PST by FredZarguna (And what Rough Beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward 5th Avenue, to be born?)
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