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Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 16:36:49 2020 No.12189600 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>12189624 >>12189951 >>12190169 >>12190263 >>12190346 >>12190490 >>12190693

So I'm doing applications of integrals and just wondering at what point does calculus actually become useful? It's great that i can work out the volumes of strange shapes and all but this still requires a function that represents these shapes. A more useful thing to learn would be how to work out the actual function itself, shouldn't it? Am i missing something here?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 16:45:53 No.12189616 Report

Quoted By: >>12190169 >>12190346 >>12190743

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus#Applications

tl;dr Calculus is probably the most useful course you'll ever take.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 16:48:21 No.12189624 Report

Quoted By:

>>12189600

When you're trying to explain just how much you've turned into a faggot over the years.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 19:08:17 No.12189951 Report

Quoted By:

>>12189600
It likely won't be used in any job you get. I had one engineering job that required calculus to determine hydronic volumes and flow, but honestly it's so repetitive you just put it in an excel calculator.

A second one we used rudimentary calculus once to design a spring for a very ambitious design (they wanted a straight cylinder sitting that that acted like a variable force conical spring). It was a one time event in that entire company. Unfortunately we concluded there wasn't enough space for their dream and we went back to standard spring designs.
But without calculus we wouldn't have even dreamed about bidding on the job.

I suppose if you work with plastics and molding you'd use way more calculus for volume calcs. It just dawned on me I've worked with metal my whole life and we take a block and cut it down, no calculus involved.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 20:24:47 No.12190169 Report

Quoted By: >>12190173 >>12190572

>>12189616
lies. linear algebra is more important.

>>12189600
seeing as physics is just a pile of differential equations, i'd say calculus is pretty damn important, though. engineering is just applied physics, so if you do any engineering you'll be quite friendly with calculus too. go into engineering if you want to learn how to model the functions you are talking about. regardless, learning the basics is like learning the ABCs, you can't write anything without knowing them

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 20:26:07 No.12190173 Report

Quoted By: >>12190271

>>12190169
actually, learn some analysis if you want to learn how to approximate functions. engineers aren't great primary sources of math information

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 20:52:21 No.12190263 Report

Quoted By:

>>12189600
>Am i missing something here?
Yes. Integrals appear everywhere in mechanics (i.e. structural engineering, solid mechanics, fluid mechanics), in electromagnetism, in statistics, in heat transfer etc.

You could, for example, calculate displacements of arches using numerical integration, vibrations of particles using numerical time-integration or the torque/bending moment in a structure.

>and all but this still requires a function that represents these shapes. A more useful thing to learn would be how to work out the actual function itself, shouldn't it?
That is called curve-fitting, and can be done to acquire a function that can be numerically integrated.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 20:54:08 No.12190271 Report

Quoted By: >>12190292

>>12190173
Doing a polynomial fit (or some other type of fit) to a data set and then manipulating the result (e.g. by numerically integrating or differentiating the data set) provides results with an accuracy sufficient for 99% of engineering-related tasks.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 21:01:39 No.12190292 Report

Quoted By:

>>12190271
what do you think analysis is?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 21:12:15 No.12190346 Report

Quoted By: >>12190364

>>12189600
It's very important. You will see it in due time.

>>12189616
What the fuck? No. Functional analysis is the most important course, but nobody besides math majors ever take it. It's the ultimate synthesis of both. It's the analysis of linear spaces beyond your kiddie finite/countable dimensional vector spaces

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 21:17:23 No.12190364 Report

Quoted By:

>>12190346
>oh, look at me! my banach space doesn't even have an inner product! I work with Fredholm integrals of the second kind! I can fit 4 bad dragons in at once!

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 22:05:00 No.12190490 Report

Quoted By:

>>12189600
well anon you can't describe basic motion without integrals. most jobs probably don't need it, almost certainly yours won't. but yeah if you ever actually need to understand basic physical processes it becomes pretty important

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 22:35:49 No.12190572 Report

Quoted By:

>>12190169
>linear algebra is more important
Try to solve a system of non linear equations

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 23:06:30 No.12190693 Report

Quoted By:

>>12189600
>how to work out the actual function itself

any curve IRL is usually kind of erratic and no way in hell would you be able to describe a continuous function that models the curve, at least not a simple one.

Instead you would likely use numerical analysis to approximate the area, or use analysis to create a polynomial or some simple function that closely models the curve you desire, and in either case you almost always need calculus.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 03 Oct 2020 23:21:19 No.12190743 Report

Quoted By:

>>12189616
Stats/Prob and linear algebra are more used in applications.

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