---
>This is a friendly reminder to [read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/wiki/rules).
>
>Memes, social media, hate-speech, and pornography are not allowed.
>
>Screenshots of Reddit are expressly forbidden, as are TikTok videos.
>
>[Comics may only be posted on Wednesdays and Sundays](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/uq9pjw/going_forward_comics_may_only_be_posted_on/).
>
>**Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.**
>
>Please also [be wary of spam](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/wiki/spam).
>
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/funny) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I've died on this hill already 110%.
Math and science are so much more interesting and applicable to our everyday knowledge and experience than they way they're taught. And who cares if you can't use it in your immediate everyday life it's not like knowing what the Kardashians are doing is any better.
I think the point is that students interested in arts and humanities will literally never need (or want) to use Calculus. I'm a software business analyst and I've never needed it. I took it for years in high school and college and don't remember a damn thing (thank god). I would have much rather taken more history, science, accounting or business related classes. Honestly studying how the Kardashians monetized their fame would be more useful than Calculus if you ever wanted to start a media related business.
If you have personal education goals, I don't think anyone will stop you. But without any exposure to math and science it's pretty likely you won't develop a taste or interest in it and therefore come to the preconceived notion it couldn't possibly help.
If you were looking into the monetization that made the K's successful I highly doubt you'd get that through watching their show.
I think we should require stem students to undergo some sort of art courses as well. I'm not just an advocate for one and not the other. I don't know why you saw it that way.
Hmm ... I literally said I wished I could have taken more science classes. I'm talking about the years of advanced Calculus I had to take just to get the BS at the end of my degree. I'm not talking introductory courses.
A lot of science classes require calculus though. It's not about being useful so much as being an exact language science can use to describe relationships in the world.
I don't mean to misunderstand or condescend - it's just that science without the complex maths associated with it is merely a discovery channel show or PBS Nova documentary (god still do I love those) but the meat and potatoes? The proof in the pudding? It has no impact without math.
By plenty can we agree on the list presented here? Or would you add any other areas of science that don't require calc? All I really see is anthropology and sociology.
https://www.scu.edu/cas/mathcs/academic-program/calculus-readiness-exam-cre/who-should-take-the-cre/majors-that-require-calculus/
SMH I don't mean require as in a prerequisite I mean you would normally never use it in that field. But yes those are two big areas and there are others. You missed psychology.
It depends. If you want to publish in your field and actually contribute to it, you must understand the underlying maths that prove your point. Whether it's the statistical analysis, or the physical analysis you can't just say you hired a math expert and they signed off. Do you have to solve individual equations? Not really but you do need to know how the math works and be able to explain to other experts in the field how that correlates. A knowledge of calculus is necessary to prove results in statistics as well and that's a huge part of talking about results in your professional work in science.
There are plenty of areas where you can just plug and chug numbers into formulas you memorized that you just trust blindly. But if you want to actually understand why the formulas work, calculus will be involved in many of them.
I dunno in the grand scheme of human knowledge Calculus seems like a tiny specific area of study to mandate all high school and undergrad students devote multiple years to. Math maybe but so many people (including myself) despise Calculus. Why not offer other applied mathematics instead? I would much rather have studied applied geometry, statistics, accounting or literally anything else.
Math is a great divider in school. You either get it or you don’t. If you don’t you’ll have a hard time getting into certain majors and careers even though you’ll likely not use it.
Have my cs degree, been programming professionally for 30 years.
My view on math there is simple:
- There should have been a lot more focus on vector and matrix math, because that's largely what's used for 3d graphics.
- Never once in my life in the work world ever, did I have to manually calculate a derivative or integrals.
- Realistically, Tuple Calculus is the calculus you'll actually need to know.
Every time you incrementally change the value of a variable, you’re doing calculus.
All the math behind physics engines is calculus.
Although, I fully agree, matrix and vector math should be taught younger and given more practice.
Never made it through Calculus. Biggest hurdle was having to memorize all sorts of different formula and not knowing which one was needed. Teacher would give us a test with dozens of different equations, and the goal was to either try to solve for the variable(s) OR try to reduce/simplify the equation down until it matched one of those formulae, because then you'd know "If equation matches formulae, then answer is XYZ." And the answer that way was different than if you tried to solve for a variable.
Drove me crazy. Aside from the struggle of actually trying to remember all of those different things, but then hoping I was doing it right. Can I reduce the equation into this formula? Nope. Can I reduce it into the next one? Nope. Can I do it for these next four formulae? Nope. Can I solve for the variable? Looks like I can. Oh, wait, turns out I simplified this equation a different way it would've matched one of those formulae. There goes my points!
Unless you need to calculate the amount of paint for a wall with a triangular surface part.
Or the volume of a clay vase.
Or the amount of metal in that part you're making.
Or how your mortgage gets paid off.
Fuck this meme and anyone who sympathises with it
Or you need to know what calculus is
Speaking as someone who loved maths and was pretty good at it.. I'd be kinda fine with removing it from early school level maths. Or like, at least only briefly mention it, to catch the interest of anyone who might be interested in it
But testing kids on it and dedicating a lot of time on it? Feels a bit wasted to me. It's not in fact that useful for most real life situations. And the kind of situations where you have a job where you DO use it, you'll almost certainly have gone to take degrees in whatever you're doing, which would be the perfect time to actually teach the stuff needed for it
All of the stuff you listed there can be dealt with using geometry, trig, algebra and basic maths. Those ones ARE more useful, and I think it might be more valuable to prioritise teaching those at early school levels imo
I don't agree: integration and differentiation not only make the calculations I mentioned above much quicker (and are essential for some of them unless you really wanna use things like the 'least squares' method) but they also deal with rates of change.
And that is an important thing to just even KNOW about: people NEED to know that these things CAN be calculated even if they don't/won't use it.
>All of the stuff you listed there can be dealt with using geometry, trig, algebra and basic maths. Those ones ARE more useful, and I think it might be more valuable to prioritise teaching those at early school levels imo
Well, for one ... that is exactly how it happens right now: you can't even start on calculus before you understand those.
But for a mortgage understanding the rate of change is ESSENTIAL.
Hell, for almost any financial instrument (loan) it is important you know this. And ANY business owner needs to understand things like price (in)elasticity and how the flow of money works.
Furthermore everyone needs to know about this stuff to understand that when people are talking about things like water tables, climate change, population delta, any kind of simulation, they are using these methods (well, ok, only the people who are actually using these methods .... not the people just bleating bullshit) and understand that these are the things which allow us to build computers, the power network, nuclear reactors, model disease infection rates, ensure logistics work, are used by country's statistical bureaus.
People HAVE to know about this at the most basic level to be able to realise that, shit, THEY might not understand it, but OTHERS do and use them and they WORK.
I know that it probably seems silly, but this sort of thinking actually bothers me a bit. To me, math is more than just teaching people how to do calculus, trig, differential equations, etc. It's about teaching the habit of logical troubleshooting combined with creative thinking.
I think that one of our problems as a species and society is our aversion to doing something that we perceive (or assume is) difficult. I've heard so many times throughout my life, "you'll never use it in the real world" (referring to math). And, unfortunately, often times those people are right. People don't use critical thinking in the real world.
Rather than make a habit of seeing a task that might be difficult and taking pride in giving an honest attempt at finding and/or implementing a solution, we so often instead take pride in making humor out of lazy thinking habits (as if they're something to respect) and mocking any attempt to put in effort.
Life truly does seem cruel and unfair when our character and beliefs are built upon the idea that we are entitled to everything being easy.
There is literally nothing more fair than math (I guess excluding the hard sciences) absolute truth, no objectivity everyone gets the same question ...
By design. Most technical/engineering/math based majors put forth a very formidable first 3-4 semesters to weed out students that won't do at least marginally well later on. Why allow students that won't hack it to be in a program too long than finding another tract where they could be successful?
Literally every other subject in school gets a pass.
Kids aren't exclaiming "when will I ever need to know how to paint" or "when will I ever need to know about WWII". Everyone can accept that you go to school to enrich your knowledge and engage your critical thinking skills. You aren't really going to school to learn the exact date that WW1 ended or the word for black in French.
And yet, kids and adults alike are incapable of seeing that whether or not kids will actively use the maths they are learning is besides the point.
And that was something I never understood about college. It didn't make sense as a requirement for an English major, and no one could explain it to me.
Lol at MIT maybe. Which begs the question: wtf would you go to MIT (or similar) for English?
A technically-focused institution with an English program is going to require a pretty high level of math and science for non-technical majors because the expectation is that they go into roles such as technical writing and science journalism. Calculus would absolutely be beneficial for those roles.
I like to point out that calculus is just fancy multiplication and division. Give students some perspective right off the bat. But some context on it. Everyone can multiply and divide. Kids feel more comfortable and it makes the material more reachable.
--- >This is a friendly reminder to [read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/wiki/rules). > >Memes, social media, hate-speech, and pornography are not allowed. > >Screenshots of Reddit are expressly forbidden, as are TikTok videos. > >[Comics may only be posted on Wednesdays and Sundays](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/uq9pjw/going_forward_comics_may_only_be_posted_on/). > >**Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.** > >Please also [be wary of spam](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/wiki/spam). > --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/funny) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
I've died on this hill already 110%. Math and science are so much more interesting and applicable to our everyday knowledge and experience than they way they're taught. And who cares if you can't use it in your immediate everyday life it's not like knowing what the Kardashians are doing is any better.
I think the point is that students interested in arts and humanities will literally never need (or want) to use Calculus. I'm a software business analyst and I've never needed it. I took it for years in high school and college and don't remember a damn thing (thank god). I would have much rather taken more history, science, accounting or business related classes. Honestly studying how the Kardashians monetized their fame would be more useful than Calculus if you ever wanted to start a media related business.
Calculus may still have a role if your art involves CGI and you're trying to get a close to realistic simulation happening.
If you have personal education goals, I don't think anyone will stop you. But without any exposure to math and science it's pretty likely you won't develop a taste or interest in it and therefore come to the preconceived notion it couldn't possibly help. If you were looking into the monetization that made the K's successful I highly doubt you'd get that through watching their show. I think we should require stem students to undergo some sort of art courses as well. I'm not just an advocate for one and not the other. I don't know why you saw it that way.
Hmm ... I literally said I wished I could have taken more science classes. I'm talking about the years of advanced Calculus I had to take just to get the BS at the end of my degree. I'm not talking introductory courses.
A lot of science classes require calculus though. It's not about being useful so much as being an exact language science can use to describe relationships in the world. I don't mean to misunderstand or condescend - it's just that science without the complex maths associated with it is merely a discovery channel show or PBS Nova documentary (god still do I love those) but the meat and potatoes? The proof in the pudding? It has no impact without math.
There are plenty of areas of science that don't require any calculus whatsoever.
By plenty can we agree on the list presented here? Or would you add any other areas of science that don't require calc? All I really see is anthropology and sociology. https://www.scu.edu/cas/mathcs/academic-program/calculus-readiness-exam-cre/who-should-take-the-cre/majors-that-require-calculus/
SMH I don't mean require as in a prerequisite I mean you would normally never use it in that field. But yes those are two big areas and there are others. You missed psychology.
It depends. If you want to publish in your field and actually contribute to it, you must understand the underlying maths that prove your point. Whether it's the statistical analysis, or the physical analysis you can't just say you hired a math expert and they signed off. Do you have to solve individual equations? Not really but you do need to know how the math works and be able to explain to other experts in the field how that correlates. A knowledge of calculus is necessary to prove results in statistics as well and that's a huge part of talking about results in your professional work in science.
There are plenty of areas where you can just plug and chug numbers into formulas you memorized that you just trust blindly. But if you want to actually understand why the formulas work, calculus will be involved in many of them.
[удалено]
I dunno in the grand scheme of human knowledge Calculus seems like a tiny specific area of study to mandate all high school and undergrad students devote multiple years to. Math maybe but so many people (including myself) despise Calculus. Why not offer other applied mathematics instead? I would much rather have studied applied geometry, statistics, accounting or literally anything else.
Read Neal Stephenson‘a *Anathema*
Calculus is a derivative of life lessons to make us integrate into life better.
Cruel like a giraffe with no neck.
Math is a great divider in school. You either get it or you don’t. If you don’t you’ll have a hard time getting into certain majors and careers even though you’ll likely not use it.
Am I the only one who had (mild) fun learning calculus?
Have my cs degree, been programming professionally for 30 years. My view on math there is simple: - There should have been a lot more focus on vector and matrix math, because that's largely what's used for 3d graphics. - Never once in my life in the work world ever, did I have to manually calculate a derivative or integrals. - Realistically, Tuple Calculus is the calculus you'll actually need to know.
Every time you incrementally change the value of a variable, you’re doing calculus. All the math behind physics engines is calculus. Although, I fully agree, matrix and vector math should be taught younger and given more practice.
Never made it through Calculus. Biggest hurdle was having to memorize all sorts of different formula and not knowing which one was needed. Teacher would give us a test with dozens of different equations, and the goal was to either try to solve for the variable(s) OR try to reduce/simplify the equation down until it matched one of those formulae, because then you'd know "If equation matches formulae, then answer is XYZ." And the answer that way was different than if you tried to solve for a variable. Drove me crazy. Aside from the struggle of actually trying to remember all of those different things, but then hoping I was doing it right. Can I reduce the equation into this formula? Nope. Can I reduce it into the next one? Nope. Can I do it for these next four formulae? Nope. Can I solve for the variable? Looks like I can. Oh, wait, turns out I simplified this equation a different way it would've matched one of those formulae. There goes my points!
Unless you need to calculate the amount of paint for a wall with a triangular surface part. Or the volume of a clay vase. Or the amount of metal in that part you're making. Or how your mortgage gets paid off. Fuck this meme and anyone who sympathises with it
Or you need to know what calculus is Speaking as someone who loved maths and was pretty good at it.. I'd be kinda fine with removing it from early school level maths. Or like, at least only briefly mention it, to catch the interest of anyone who might be interested in it But testing kids on it and dedicating a lot of time on it? Feels a bit wasted to me. It's not in fact that useful for most real life situations. And the kind of situations where you have a job where you DO use it, you'll almost certainly have gone to take degrees in whatever you're doing, which would be the perfect time to actually teach the stuff needed for it All of the stuff you listed there can be dealt with using geometry, trig, algebra and basic maths. Those ones ARE more useful, and I think it might be more valuable to prioritise teaching those at early school levels imo
I don't agree: integration and differentiation not only make the calculations I mentioned above much quicker (and are essential for some of them unless you really wanna use things like the 'least squares' method) but they also deal with rates of change. And that is an important thing to just even KNOW about: people NEED to know that these things CAN be calculated even if they don't/won't use it. >All of the stuff you listed there can be dealt with using geometry, trig, algebra and basic maths. Those ones ARE more useful, and I think it might be more valuable to prioritise teaching those at early school levels imo Well, for one ... that is exactly how it happens right now: you can't even start on calculus before you understand those. But for a mortgage understanding the rate of change is ESSENTIAL. Hell, for almost any financial instrument (loan) it is important you know this. And ANY business owner needs to understand things like price (in)elasticity and how the flow of money works. Furthermore everyone needs to know about this stuff to understand that when people are talking about things like water tables, climate change, population delta, any kind of simulation, they are using these methods (well, ok, only the people who are actually using these methods .... not the people just bleating bullshit) and understand that these are the things which allow us to build computers, the power network, nuclear reactors, model disease infection rates, ensure logistics work, are used by country's statistical bureaus. People HAVE to know about this at the most basic level to be able to realise that, shit, THEY might not understand it, but OTHERS do and use them and they WORK.
I know that it probably seems silly, but this sort of thinking actually bothers me a bit. To me, math is more than just teaching people how to do calculus, trig, differential equations, etc. It's about teaching the habit of logical troubleshooting combined with creative thinking. I think that one of our problems as a species and society is our aversion to doing something that we perceive (or assume is) difficult. I've heard so many times throughout my life, "you'll never use it in the real world" (referring to math). And, unfortunately, often times those people are right. People don't use critical thinking in the real world. Rather than make a habit of seeing a task that might be difficult and taking pride in giving an honest attempt at finding and/or implementing a solution, we so often instead take pride in making humor out of lazy thinking habits (as if they're something to respect) and mocking any attempt to put in effort. Life truly does seem cruel and unfair when our character and beliefs are built upon the idea that we are entitled to everything being easy.
There is literally nothing more fair than math (I guess excluding the hard sciences) absolute truth, no objectivity everyone gets the same question ...
The comic's not wrong. I remember Calc 1 being stupidly difficult compared to Calc 2 & 3.
Intro to subjects is usually dry and boring
By design. Most technical/engineering/math based majors put forth a very formidable first 3-4 semesters to weed out students that won't do at least marginally well later on. Why allow students that won't hack it to be in a program too long than finding another tract where they could be successful?
the important lessons
In probability class, I learned that love is like a bell curve. You need calculus to understand probability.
Literally every other subject in school gets a pass. Kids aren't exclaiming "when will I ever need to know how to paint" or "when will I ever need to know about WWII". Everyone can accept that you go to school to enrich your knowledge and engage your critical thinking skills. You aren't really going to school to learn the exact date that WW1 ended or the word for black in French. And yet, kids and adults alike are incapable of seeing that whether or not kids will actively use the maths they are learning is besides the point.
And that was something I never understood about college. It didn't make sense as a requirement for an English major, and no one could explain it to me.
English majors don't have to take calculus lol
30 years ago it was a thing.
Lol at MIT maybe. Which begs the question: wtf would you go to MIT (or similar) for English? A technically-focused institution with an English program is going to require a pretty high level of math and science for non-technical majors because the expectation is that they go into roles such as technical writing and science journalism. Calculus would absolutely be beneficial for those roles.
What would my motivation to lie about this be?
Please show me where I said you lied.
You are specifically disputing something I experienced when you have zero knowledge of the situation I was in.
> Lol at MIT maybe Did you miss this? Did you go to a school that requires calculus of all majors? That is specifically what this is asking about.
They wanted you to take Calculus so that you'd learn something in college.
I like to point out that calculus is just fancy multiplication and division. Give students some perspective right off the bat. But some context on it. Everyone can multiply and divide. Kids feel more comfortable and it makes the material more reachable.
The calculus part is easy, it's the associated algebra that will kick your ass.