Using Calculus

Two Hundred Eighty Eighth Post: Using Calculus

How often during the day do you use higher mathematics such as calculus? Probably not a whole lot unless your job or hobbies require it. That is not saying calculus doesn’t have many uses from accounting to physics, but it isn’t a math like algebra that is used daily. You use algebra without knowing it from the grocery store bill to video games. Video games being programmed with formulas of higher math such as calculus. The banks are figuring their profits and interest with calculus. Mathematicians are working with math functions. And engineers are designing something that needs some “calculated-curves.”

So calculus is there even if it goes unnoticed. If you never studied it, you may think you do not need it. But there is one concept in math: the more useful and easy to use the more valuable it becomes. The more we can discover and simplify new ideas in higher mathematics the closer the math evolves into a useable form that everyone values. So when you find yourself studying math of any kind ask yourself what is the application of this theory and is there any way the fundamental ideas can be simplified.

There is no doubt calculus is difficult, but the basics of it if presented in the right way could be understood by most anyone. The same is true of anything that has to be learned. If the key concepts are put in an organized form it is easier to learn. Recall textbooks you have learned from. They all took a massive amount of information and organized it into a structure that was easier to learn.

In the U.S. we are used to the teacher doing the hard work determining what to study and explaining the basics to use. When studying math in college the majority of work is the student’s to study. Here is a “real word” experience where the key terms aren’t highlighted. It takes some ingenuity, but anyone can learn to think critically. It just takes some practice.

So until you have to think like Macgyver... May the Creative Force be with You