Calculus for the Curious

Post by dicroce » Sun, Oct 27, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

yessenia1 wrote: post #17

I used to always associate 'math smarts' with 'code smarts'. Spent most of my life telling myself that since I was bad at math I had no hope learning how to code. Now I'm 2 weeks into a coding bootcamp after losing my job and am realizing they are complete different parts of the brain. I believe in myself more with every push to heroku. maybe I will do a Calculus class next and prove to myself I can learn anything. A…

I used to suck at algebra, then I wrote c++ code for 30 years... now I can see how they differ and how they are similar.

sometimes when you are programming in a big body of code you are dealing with lots of types (types in the programming sense)... and you are dealing with functions that have type signatures that must be satisfied to avoid compile errors... so you wrap this type in that one so you can call that function.. or you convert the return value from one type to another so you can call something else...

anyway, that is all similar to what you are doing when you manipulate an equation. you follow the rules and change it into a form that is more useful.

Post by amatic » Sun, Oct 27, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #3

ncfausti wrote: post #2

I just stumbled upon Infinite Powers in B&N, and after reading a bit, decided to buy it. Loving it so far. I’ve been curious about calculus for a long time now, since I’ve never taken a formal class on it and am now in a graduate CS program, I feel like I’m missing the deeper understanding of many of the formulas that are presented. My plan is to get through it to get some background on the main ideas of calculus, th…

Try http://www.math.smith.edu/~callahan/intromine.html which is a very conceptual and simulation-focused calculus curriculum, without so much symbol twiddling. The concepts of calculus (the mathematics of motion and change) are absolutely fundamental across science, but being able to get closed-form solutions to tricky indefinite integrals (while an enjoyable puzzle) is only marginally useful per se. > work through k…

Downloaded the Calculus in Context when I read the your comment. That is exactly the kind of approach to math I appreciate and understand. I've been reading it and enjoying making simulations during the weekend. Thanks!

Re: Calculus for the Curious

Re: Calculus for the Curious