I hate calculus

[Ediacara]

Man.... do I hate calculus. I had an exam tonight, that I am sure I flunked. The test was so long, I didn't get to 1/3 of the questions (well neither did about 3/4 of the class), and the ones I got to, well....

I just don't understand the way calculus is taught at my university, it's weird. Calculus is taught as though it's a mathematical abstraction that in no way ever, at all, for the love of god don't even think about it, has anything to do with Newtonian physics. So, as a result of that I suck.

Plus, one of these problems, I know I got right, but will get no points on. It was a related rate question, ie, two bicyclists are travelling at 90 degrees from eachother and are at different speeds. At what rate is the distance between them increasing? The ONLY thing you need for you to solve this problem is the Pythagorean Theorom. Introducing calculus actually makes this problem more DIFFICULT, but oh well.... Since I used my brain to solve the problem rather than derivatives, I get no points.

And everything else? Abstraction. It's masturbation with radicands. Autofellatio with exponents.....

I am not sure if I will be able to graduate because of this.... I may move to Seattle for the summer and retake the classes at community college, but I need to talk to my advisor.

So in summery: I hate calculus.

[baby_bear]

1. Did they not teach the theory of calculus first?

So many places don't. It's such a mistake. Like learning advanced piano without understanding theory.

May I ask what school you are attending?

I took calculus at UCLA and it wasn't much better than what you have described.

s_m

[Ediacara]

4. no they don't

calculus is advanced mathematical masturbation according to the math dept.

[lcordero]

2. have you checked out any of the resources online to see if

there is anything that can help you?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=calculus

[Cloud]

3. Odd

I am in Calculus and after 2 tests my average is a 98%.

Maybe because I had Calculus in high school and I am taking it again in college.

[dreissig]

5. Calculus Is Badly Taught

Calculus is badly taught because of a split among mathematicians about the nature of mathematics. Some say that math is a manipulation of symbols; others say no, the symbols are supposed to represent the concepts behind them.

Calculus is caught in the middle because even though the ideas are very important, the formalists have the upper hand in the teaching of mathematics. The result is an ungainly compromise between factions.

I'm studying calculus again because I need it as part of other studies. But this time around I'm valuing my intuition. A curve is a curve; it is not the sum of infinitesimals. The theory of limits is a dodge.

[baby_bear]

6. Interesting, dreisseg

I have a friend who just got her Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Kansas. I'm going to bounce your thoughts about calculus off her, because even though I took a year of it myself in college, I can't even begin to address your insights.

But I am intrigued!

s_m

[dreissig]

19. Nunez and Lakoff

My ideas aren't original. I got them from Nunez and Lakoff in their book "Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being". I enjoyed reading it because it affirms my belief that intuition has been slighted. Calculus begs to be understood intuitively, but it's taught in a way that derogates intuition.

There are actually controversies in mathematics, and we're not told about them. People who hate calculus are like cats who balk at eating dry food. I used to be one of those people until I learned that my mathematical ideas have been suppressed.

http://perso.unifr.ch/rafael.nunez/reviews.html


Most of us think of mathematics as some sort of inaccessible (and sometimes beautiful) language that's hidden within nature, only to be uncovered and plucked out through hours of rigorous and painful scholarship. Mathematics seems to be a language that transcends everyday reality, something outside and without us.

Apparently, nothing could be farther from the truth. In "Where Mathematics Comes From," George Lakoff and Raphael Nunez allay our misplaced xenophobic fear. In the tradition of cognitive science's investigation of the "embodiment of the human mind," Lakoff and Nunez take to task a wealth of common assumptions about mathematical "ideas" and, one by one, turn them all on their heads.

For starters, the number line isn't actually a line. And the numbers don't actually fill it. It's not for the joy of bashing the king of sciences that Lakoff and Nunez dismantle common myths. The dissection allows us to see how math actually works, and how, as humans, we can possibly understand the ideas.

What's being espoused is mind-based mathematics, i.e., a math based on our innate ability to perform rudimentary arithmetic and subitization as infants, on basic cognitive tools like conceptual metaphors, blends, prototypes, frames, etc., and the concept of an embodied mind. Lakoff and Nunez try to show us that math doesn't just consist of moving obscure symbols around in a predetermined fashion, but that it encompasses concepts and ideas that can't be arrived at by standard ways of discussing math. The authors create a series of "idea analyses," explanations of how arithmetic operations are conceived of in terms of collecting objects. And how our concept of actual infinity is based on a series of finite processes-after all, how else could we conceive of the infinite when we, and all we encounter, are undeniably finite. Mathematics is actually a tool that we've constructed, not the language of the universe.

The joy in reading George Lakoff rubs off from his own joy in writing books about sophisticated and non-trivial topics. Keeping it readable for a wide audience -- no matter what the education level-he always takes great pain to achieve clarity. Lakoff's egalitarian approach is appropriate, considering the book takes to task the obfuscatory nature of mathematical symbol-mongering, but also because there's a secondary educational motive to the book: Lakoff and Nunez believe there's a better way to teach math. The proposed way teaches not only that theorems are true, but also why they're true. Which, of course, can only be done if we can generate a new understanding of this device we've created.

[Ediacara]

20. Can I have Lakoff as a professor?

[mhr]

7. The Calculus Problem Solver Saved Me

This is a great book of example problems all with worked solutions.

It seemed to have every permutation of a problem imaginable.

[PVnRT]

8. It is taught that way in too many places

All the calculus, differential equations, partial differential equations, and so forth that I know I learned in classes like Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics. Mathematicians, unfortunately, are mathematicians, and love teaching abstract tricks and nonsense because that's what they like. Consequently, students walk out feeling like they didn't learn much, unless they are really good at math and love it in the first place.

[Sting]

9. I too hate calculus...

I failed Calculus 1101 twice, and I have to take it a third time. It's all useless stuff to me, but I have to have it for my major. :mad:

[Scurrilous]

29. I've got you beat...

..I failed Calculus 101 three times. I didn't even need to take it, it was an elective. Thanks to a generous forgiveness policy in place at the time I attended college, once I finally passed (barely) the failing grades were removed. Last math class ever!

[PVnRT]

10. As for the rate problem

I think I have it worked out (my calc is rusty, as I'm usually too busy sweating over fugacity and equilibrium, but anyway):

d = distance between the riders
x = distance of rider one from the origin
y = distance of rider two from the origin
t = time

at any time t, d(t)^2 = x(t)^2 + y(t)^2

taking the first derivative of this will yield:

2d'(t)d(t) = 2x'(t)x(t) + 2y'(t)y(t)

the 2's cancel out, and solving for d'(t) (which is what you want)

d'(t) = (x'(t)x(t) + y'(t)y(t)) / d(t)

substituting in the definition of d(t) yields my result:

d'(t) = (x'(t)x(t) + y'(t)y(t)) / ((x(t)^2 + y(t)^2)^(1/2))

The units would be consistent, at any rate. I'm assuming this is a first-semester calculus course, so it shouldn't be anything beyond taking the derivative of two things being multiplied.

[JI7]

11. some advice

take calculus during the summer as you are considering without taking any other classes during that time. or if you take it during a regular semester or quarter, make sure you aren't taking too many other classes, or classes that require a lot of your time. i think taking it during the summer will be the best. and get tutoring if you need it. also when you start a chapter, read through the section carefully and try to understand it as best as you can before you start doing the actual problems.

[papau]

12. check out MIT's online course

I'm told they have some great courses on line!

:-)

[Kolesar]

13. Fresh, and Soph. calc did not make sense until I studied Jr. Electronics

Then, looking back, I started to see the types of problems they were trying to solve and it made much more sense. I thought that Strengths of Materials class in Mechanical Engineering was a great way of visualizing what problems calculus was trying to solve.

Some of the other responses above were close to my experience in that respect.

[theorist]

14. I finished a B.S. in Mathematics in May,

so I thought I'd chime in. Calculus as it is taught today came about as a model for describing planetary motions, and it wasn't completely formalized until the 19th century when Euler, Cauchy, et al. popularized the area known as "analysis". That's when it became "masturbation" as you call it, but that is also when it became unified.

Could you imagine studying chemistry without a periodic table? That's what calculus was like 200 years ago, and pretty soon the subject will be required in high school. I think the problem that a lot of students have is getting past all of the mundane algebra to see the beauty of it all. For example, the idea that you can add up an infinite amount of numbers to get a finite number is a pretty profound one.

Another problem is that students don't see the usefulness of it. It turns out that the whole of modern physics is predicated on the concept (some say approximation) of a continuum, which allows for calculus to be used as a model for quantum mechanics, etc. In other words, we can get numbers from our experiences with nature and try to make predictions. We're usually wrong, but when we're right it is more than just a self-inflicted orgasm, it is progress.

Edit: typo

[Ediacara]

15. but that's just the problem

Could you imagine studying chemistry without a periodic table? That's what calculus was like 200 years ago, and pretty soon the subject will be required in high school.

The periodic table makes chemistry make sense. The way calculus is taught here is akin to mixing things in a beaker, and then expecting people to make charge predictions without teaching them anything about electrons. The complate lack of reference to the real world is what makes calculus difficult.

We're just gonna throw Rolle's Theorom and L'Hopital's Rule at you, and not explain why they work, and not EVER EVER EVER tell you WHY you might want to even take the limit of 0/0. It's presented as, "We may encounter a problem where we'd need:

..lim...... __x__..
..x-->0....x^2

So we're gonna figure out how to do it, even if it has no real uses."

And what's more, we're not going to teach you how to use L'Hopital's Rule until you've been solving this type of problem using a different method for months.

There is no FRAMEWORK, no REASON in the way calculus is taught here. If a framework, like the Periodic Table, were interwoven into their teaching style, I'd probably understand it 100x better, but it is essentially mathematical masturbation at this point.

[theorist]

24. If your description is accurate,

I would be forced to blame your professor. Believe it or not, there IS a framework. The problem these teachers probably have is a result of being so far removed from the days they struggled with the subject.

[Ediacara]

26. it's not just the instructor (grad student)

The structure of the class is commanded from on high from the dept head, and all calculus instructors need to teach in the same way.

[Rabrrrrrr]

16. Calculus Rocks! I loved it!!

Especially once we started using it in physics, and then of course in the circuits, thermo, etc., other classes, where the calculus became real and I really began to understand what the hell it was doing.

But even before then, it blew my mind.

I had an important, spiritual, life-changing epiphany in second semester calculus about e.

[DemoTex]

21. Soul-brother!

Let's peel a few onions!

[Rabrrrrrr]

22. Someone else with an "e" experience?

Haven't met anyone else yet who's had one!

Or are you agreeing with the loving calculus part?

Peel peel peel peel.

What I most loved in studying electrical engineering was the imaginary number crap, and how it all works out. Stuff like e raised to the power of i*pi.

mathematics really is travelling in a whole different universe, but a universe that is set up solely to speak about our universe.

I agree with the professor from one of the other posts - mathematics is the language of God (except that I would refine it to application, and say physics is the language of God)

[Nikia]

17. My calculus professor scared me

Mathematics was a religion to him. He actually said that mathematics is the closest that we can get to divine perfection here on Earth. Mathematicians are the closest to the the god(s).
Anyway, he was big into theory. We actually had to do calculus proofs on the exams. These were not proofs that we had seen, doing it from memory. We had to figure them out. There was also always a question about mathematicians like Newton or Leibnez. The class also moved rather quickly. We did integration as well as derivatives. We had a ton of required, graded homework every class.
He took pride in the fact that the grades usually ended up as a perfect curve. Most of us got Cs while a few people flunked or a talented few that usually had taken the course in high school got As. I worked hard for my "C" even though I did well in high school math and always got high test scores in it on standardized tests.
I think that I finally thorouhgly understood calculus by the end of the term and could have done well if I continued in higher mathematics. I easily got an "A" when I took statistics later. I had other interests though and was not interested in constantly working that hard in an elective course again.

[DemoTex]

18. I loved calculus! I treated it like a game or puzzle ...

I worked every problem at the end of each chapter and any other assigned problems. Then I reworked them. Funny thing, the problems on the quizes and finals ... I had seen before. I had a 4.0 in six quarters of engineering calculus (including the killer course, Differential Equations - Diffy-Q) at Georgia Tech.

As I posted on another thread a few minutes ago, a great read on the history and independent/simultaneous development - or refinement -of the calculus by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (with help from others, of course), is David Berlinski's Tour of the Calculus.

Well, easy enough for me to gush on about calculus. I don't have finals coming up! Good luck with the onion.

[kodi]

23. dude, its just another way of looking at the world, a story to remember

you have to understand the story of what the calculus is trying to tell us. after that, it gets a lot less complicated, trust me.

[Pobeka]

25. I love calculus

I agree with a post above, you have to get a fundamental understanding of the basic theory first.

I use calculus a few times a year in my work, and believe me it's a great way to solve many problems in the real world.

I would suggest you not go farther in calculus until you get a handle on the underpinnings. Then you'll have a good chance for the "light bulb" to go on, like it did with me.

Good luck!

[CSI Willows]

27. I've heard it was bad

I'm in 8th grade and I'm in Geometry...I've never been a big fan of math and so I don't like it, but I can't believe there's actually another math class worse than it!

[Kellanved]

28. Calculus is fun

That it may be thaught wrong is another matter.

The new Stephenson novel (Quicksilver) describing the feud between Newton and Leibniz offers a fascinating view of calculus' history BTW.

[Lindsey]

30. The highest I had to go was statistics

and for me that was hugh. Here's what I did. I took the class COMPLETELY by itself, waited to get an INCREDIBLE professor who had a wonderful reputation, went to tutoring once per week (with one other student so we split the cost), and went to study group with two other students EVERY SATURDAY. I ended up making an A. I'm not a "math" person at all so I know you can do it if you focus major energy and attention on "getting it." Good luck :-)