/sci/ - Science & Math

I majored in Calculus and it was the hardest thing I've ever done.

it's just a tool

it depends. Generally, in first year you will take a linear algebra and a calculus course. They will both be difficult, but since linear algebra is an abstraction of calculus, and less computational, it is considered more intelligent. That said, calculus continues into real analyisis, which is some of the most fun topological thinking. So, i don;t know, in short.

>>5369166
Number theory is pretty hard. Also dark and edgy.

>>5369166
>Not Leibniz's picture instead
Fuck you ass hole.
Keep living in 1700 England.

>>5369194

Germanfag detected.

i'll be doing calc II and linear algebra after christmas, then calc III after that.


how much of calc I will be in III? it will be over a year since i did calc I so I'm not sure if I should review it before doing III

>>5369179
>linear algebra
>abstraction of calculus
u wot m8?

>>5369196
I wish.
So many great Mathematicians were German.. (Leibniz, Gauss, Riemann, etc.............................................)

>>5369230

>Leibniz

Chinese.

>Gauss

Persian.

>Riemann

Australian Aboriginal.

>>5369166
If you're in high school, it's the holy grial.
If you're in college it's for sub-humans.

calc 1 I failed a few times but calc 2 i got a C the first semester.

>>5369237

lol'd

>>5369240

I took calculus in college.

For me, math was tedious and unattractive until calculus. Now I love every discipline of math because learning calculus taught me to appreciate both the abstract and practical train of thought to solving problems.

I feel like this is why math remains unattractive to many Americans; they didn't have to take calculus, or, at the very least, were not given the first hand experience to use the tools that solve technical problems in the modern day.

>>5369589
The reason why Americans don't like math is because it is taught almost strictly on theory that no one gives a fuck about. You will never have to prove anything in the real world. Guess how many times I've applied LaGrange's theorem outside of abstract algebra? Not once. The way math is taught it soooo fucking pointless. Just graduated with a bachelors FYI.

>>5369166
>Is calculus seen as a "hard" branch of math or is it babby's first math?
You know the answer, I'm sure: it depends on who you ask. To a mathematician, it's freshman stuff. To an average high school student, it's hard. What question remains?
>Which field do you regard as the most difficult?
I'm not sure what the concept of the difficulty of a *branch* even means.

>>5369589
i always liked math but this was the case for me with chemistry in relation to ochem

I majored in partial derivatives, shit was so cash

>>5369589
>appreciate both the abstract and practical train of thought to solving problems.
>solving problems
THIS is what taught me to love maths. It just so happens that maths during high school is NEVER about solving problems, so I don't blame high schoolers for hating it.

>>5369276
you must be so proud of your accomplishment

>>5369230
>So many great Mathematicians were German.. (Leibniz, Gauss, Riemann, etc.............................................)

And Newton was better than all of them.

"Taking mathematics from the beginning of the world to the time when Newton lived, what he has done is much the better part."
-Leibniz

>>5369166
Calculus seems to extend into pretty much everything.
The people taking Economics use babby-tier calc. Physicists obviously do. Other math specialities make use of it.

I'd go as far as to say that Calculus is the largest branch on the tree of Advanced math.

>>5369566
No unusual, what I meant is that there's nothing lower you can take in college and be worthy of being called a college student. Anyone who needs to take precalc shouldn't be there; I don't even know why colleges have it.

>>5369166
To a layperson, calculus is the hardest math imaginable. To a scientist/engineer, calculus is the hardest math they'll ever take or use. To most mathematicians, calculus is for babby. I will roll my eyes at you if you complain about how hard multivariable is. You'll have some people doing stochastic calculus or PDEs or some weird branch of analysis who can rightfully talk about how hard their calculus is. But the calculus most people refer to is at worst integration and differential equations. Please do not mistakenly believe that this is the hardest thing math has to offer.

calculus isn't a branch of maths

>>5369773
Newton was nowhere near Gauss' ability. Britain hasn't produced a Gauss level mathematician ever. The only countries which have are India, Switzerland and Sicily

>>5369194
>>5369194
Dumbass, Newton developed it first, and Leibniz copied his notes. All Leibniz did was publish first.

>>5369166
calculus is piss-fucking-easy. It's the simplest shit ever. What makes people think calculus is hard is the amount of algebraic mastery one needs in order to make short work of calculus. Most people lack this.

>>5369835
> still believing this sad, sad tale
Newton was too busy watching people get hanged while Leibniz was working hard on developing a notation that would lubricate the intuition. Syntax matters. Everyone knows that. (Except Newton. Despicable.)

I'd say stochastics is the hardest one as almost noone seems to have an intuitive grasp of it, see the two goats problem.

>>5369839
>still believing what actually happened

Why, yes, I do believe it actually. Leibniz piggybacked off of Newton. Newton was able to do all this amazing stuff and still have time to write bullshit on religion.

>>5369842

I second this notion.

>>5369842
Agreed. I don't know anyone working with concepts in stochastics rather than plain formalism.

>>5369201
calc 3 is calc 1 in 3d.

Any math that involves real world problems and will require writing code to solve them. Most pure math guys are worthless in the real world.

>>5369836
I concur with this. Most of my students understand the basic concepts and are able to apply these concepts to problem solving situations - but screw up the algebra.

I would suggest that relative to the age in which the average student is taught the subject, that high-school algebra is possibly the hardest 'branch' of mathematics.

From my experience it's probability. Even though it's mathematically simple most seem to have difficulty intuiting the concept.

>>5369836
Meh.
The beef I have with calculus is that hard problems are often cases of "either you see it or you don't". By that mean if you see the trick it's trivial, if you don't there is really no deductive way to find it.
By comparison, algebra or topology problems are a matter of understanding the problem and having a deductive process to solve it.

For me the hardest was probability theory. Most of my friends had great difficulty with set theory, specifically with infinite sets.

Probability is just a special case of measure theory which is part of calculus.

>>5369875
>implying 'pure math guys' can't code
>implying pure math doesn't involve real world problems
>implying you have any experience with anything you're talking about

>>5369166
In many countries calculus is taught in high school

>>5369842
>>5369844
>>5369860
Stochastics is very intuitive. It's just applied measure theory and measure theory directly originated from real world intuition.

>>5369875
In my university at least one programming course in mandatory for math and physics people.

>>5370023
>AAA is just applied BBB
I wish people would stop inferring all kind of irrelevant shit from this statement.
There is no theorem saying that AAA is therefore more or equally intuitive than BBB.

>>5370034
No need to be upset. I was just saying that I find probability theory very intuitive. I admit there are lots of simple people who already fail to understand conditional probability. I can't see why. What's there not to comprehend? Or is it a gender thing? Is probability theory closer to "women logic" and therefore considered "hard" by men?

>>5370042
I don't know. I think most people are in a mindset of true-or-not. Making and quantifying ambiguous statements about reality is going to be a thing of intractable abstraction.

>>5370085
>abstractions
>in math

Oh no, what a surprise!

>>5369816
>Sicily
>Country

and this was supposed to be the smart board

>>5369179
linear algebra is an algebraic system for dealing with matrices and spaces and shit, it has very little to do with calculus besides the fact that you can abuse it to emulate calculus operations.

>>5369835
Too bad archimedes worked it all out 2000 years before that but his work was lost and destroyed during the xtian dark ages.

>>5370096
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Sicily

>>5370104
>wiki
>/sci/

surely you can give me better sources

>sicily is a country

just stop it

>>5370119
>surely you can give me better sources
Oh because you have doubts concerning the existence of the kingdom of Sicily?

>sicily is a country
>strawman

>>5369816
not mentioning france:
Cauchy, Bézout, Borel, Lebesgue, Poincaré, Bienaym é,Mersenne, Poisson, Chasles, D'Alembert, Fermat, Fourier, Laplace, Galois, Lagrange

just from the top of my head, and those are just the gauss level mathematician

>>5370119
>that picture

being proud of math is for fags and the fags on 4chan are no exception.

>>5370137
but none of those are Gauss level. Fucking Galois? u are tickling my balls

>>5370096
I was referring to Archimedes of Syracuse. technically, when he was born it was greek i believe, but calling him greek sounds a bit retarded, calling him italian is pointless, the romans killed him for being a foreigner. So i'll settle for Sicily. There weren't any countries as we would recognise them anyway.

>>5369196
I'm not German and Leibniz' theory was more complete and he published first.

>>5369773
Lol, Newton is barely considered a mathematician.

>>5369778
Because many, many (even most) high schools in the US in rural areas are much worse than even the ghettoest urban school, particularly in math.

It's near-impossible to even evaluate such kids for enrollment - you sure as hell can't do it by grades, because most won't have them, or by test scores, because they don't get any prep, or by recommendations since their teachers are useless. Typically the top-ranked schools will just randomly pick a few at random of the hundreds of applicants who are obviously literate and independent. They will come in needing remedial math work, however, lest they sink fast. You can't just skip matrices or trig or proofs and expect to pass calc.

>>5370166
you are in high school I presume, cauchy alone is far more superior to gauss

>>5370211
I fucking puked.

>>5369773
lrn2archimedes manuscript

tl;dr: Archimedes had already achieved the mathematical aspect of it 2000 years before Newton and Leibniz but it was lost until somewhat recently. Newton may be a good scientist, but not a mathematician, that quote is absolute rubbish.

Are Americans introduced to branches such as differential and integral calculus in high school or is that considered college level?

>>5370194
umm what? you do realise he invented calculus, he invented a big part of modern math. Who the fuck do you think you are exactly?

>>5370231
He had no confidence in it and his magnum opus was published using completely geometrical and algebraic arguments with no mention of fluxions.

Leibniz was easily twice the mathematician Newton was. Newton was a great man and achieved great things and we can say that without having to inflate his stature beyond credibility.

>>5370228
You know, except when he invented calculus at the age of twenty-something at roughly the speed it takes you to fucking learn it.

>>5370255
>archimedes had already invented calculus 2000 years before
>it's babby's first math
lol

>>5370211
Cauchy did very little. Gauss was a true universalist in the style of Euler, not just touching every field but drastically changing them.

>tfw just found out i got a 10 on my calc 2 exam last week

feels alright

>>5370231
Leibniz published first and coined the notation dx/dy while Newton used some retarded Fluxon bullshit. And calculus has barely anything to do with modern math. His mathematical achievements are minor.

>>5370269
Which doesn't matter. He still invented it separately from Archimedes.

1/10 made me reply

>>5369596

Amerifat here. Can confirm.

>>5369793
>multivariable

I don't even know what a multivariable is, but I can count to potato.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HRD9X-2Bmdw
No one person invented calculus, it's like saying Euclid invented geometry

derivative calculus is the most elementary of college level math. anything below is high school math.

someone who graduates college without a semester of calc 1 lacks a college education in math.