Calculus isn’t difficult. Pidgeon holing the general population into pushing symbols around on paper to algebraically satisfy a multiple choice exam for college credit is. At the end of the day, Calculus is just a way of describing rates of change oe how adding little parts form big parts.
The way we teach calculus completely misses the point of Calculus. In practice, you don’t do Calculus with pen and paper. You do calculus by having a function and telling a computer to “do Calculus at it” to get the result. In public school, you begin learning functions in 6th grade.
The important part is understanding why and when you “Do Calculus at” something. I guess the figured all that out in Star Trek.
On the one hand, yes, I agree with you, calculus is not that complicated, but at the same time, I think you’d be hard-pressed to teach even the basic concepts to your average adult today.
I loved that line in whichever TNG episode it was, because it was just an off-hand joke that shows how much humanity has advanced.
Calculus isn’t difficult. Pidgeon holing the general population into pushing symbols around on paper to algebraically satisfy a multiple choice exam for college credit is. At the end of the day, Calculus is just a way of describing rates of change oe how adding little parts form big parts.
The way we teach calculus completely misses the point of Calculus. In practice, you don’t do Calculus with pen and paper. You do calculus by having a function and telling a computer to “do Calculus at it” to get the result. In public school, you begin learning functions in 6th grade.
The important part is understanding why and when you “Do Calculus at” something. I guess the figured all that out in Star Trek.
On the one hand, yes, I agree with you, calculus is not that complicated, but at the same time, I think you’d be hard-pressed to teach even the basic concepts to your average adult today.
I loved that line in whichever TNG episode it was, because it was just an off-hand joke that shows how much humanity has advanced.