Anything that moves or has a curve.
Did you ever have physics? Do you know how distance relates to speed? Do you know how speed relates to acceleration?
That relationship can be explained by 1st year calculus.
That would seem to be an ongoing issue, as far as my experience goes. My calculus classes focused almost entirely on theory, which is great if you're a math major, planning on being a math teacher or professor.
Wonderful. I can revolve an equation's curve around an axis and compute the bounded volume. Awesome. I'm gonna go impress my friends now, right?
Please connect it to a physical thing that illustrates why this means anything to anyone except people who love nothing but pure theory.
That would seem to be an ongoing issue, as far as my experience goes. My calculus classes focused almost entirely on theory, which is great if you're a math major, planning on being a math teacher or professor.
Wonderful. I can revolve an equation's curve around an axis and compute the bounded volume. Awesome. I'm gonna go impress my friends now, right?
Please connect it to a physical thing that illustrates why this means anything to anyone except people who love nothing but pure theory.
If you think a university is wasting your time teaching you calculus, then you're wasting their time by attending a four year institution.
It may be hard, you may suck at it, and you may not use it in your career, but it is important to know if you want to be a well rounded intelligent person.
Wow, imo calculus is extremely important to know, even if you don't directly use it in day-to-day life. A lot of professionals use it every day. It has tremendous applications in physical sciences, engineering, economics, finance, computer science, medicine, etc.
The amount of a drug present in the bloodstream generally decreases at a rate proportional to how much drug is present in the blood stream.Medicine? I doubt that. Most doctors don't need to know more than basic arithmetic unless they're radiation oncologists or something obscure like that, and even for them it's medical physicists who do most of the hard number crunching.
Wow. Five fucking years.
Wonder what JEDI's doing with his life now.
The amount of a drug present in the bloodstream generally decreases at a rate proportional to how much drug is present in the blood stream.
Do you see that sentence? Should a doctor understand that? It's certainly beyond "basic arithmetic." That sentence says, given x=the amount of drug present, dx/dt=-kx. Whoa! A simple differential equation. Understanding the calculus involved in solving that equation leads to an increased understanding of what is going on. The doctor needs not remember how to integrate that problem, though having done some calculus at some point or another will lead to a general increase in the understanding of underlying considerations when administering drugs.
Here, take a look at this book: Mathematical Modeling in Biology. Look through the index and see if there are any medicine related topics. Much of the book is at least at the calculus level; I think there's some partial differentical equations in there. Twas one of my favorite books:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0075...pt#reader-link
Medical researchers absolutely need to be able to use calculus. Practicing physicians though? Not so much. Sure I'm glad the have to take a couple of semesters in college so that they still have a vague memory of the basics once they get to medical school, but I guarantee you that when a doctor is writing orders for a drug he isn't doing calculus in his head.