141–142 of 142 posts
Very much yes. I am currently trying to tutor my daughter through college-level calculus. She wants to be a civil engineer. Civil engineers, obviously, need to know calculus. But calculus is not being taught to her by engineers. It is being taught by mathematicians. And as part of teaching it, they are attempting to instill a "mathematical mindset". Which means, in practice, that it is an entry to proofs. Every proof…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Everyone knows that nearly no engineers use calculus in their day job. Therefore, the purpose and measure of success isn't whether an engineer uses calculus in their day job. It is a great signal of technical problem solving ability, it is really powerful having a large pool of people who are trained in working with rates, areas and margins." I'm not saying that calculus is useless in an engineer's education - far f…
You don't need tricks to solve the limit of (x^2)sin(2x)/sqrt(x) as x->0, only to know equivalent infinitesimals, so that sin(2x) can be replaced by 2x in this limit and 2x^3/sqrt(x) can be simplified to 2x^(3-1/2) so the limit is zero. Moreover, you should know that x^2 and sin(2x) are really smaller compared to sqrt(x) so that the limit is zero. Knowing how to compare two infinitesimals can help you to replace a di…