dbx999 t1_j9wjcrl wrote on February 25, 2023 at 1:46 AM

Reply to comment by shirk-work in Reality is an openness that we can never fully grasp. We need closures as a means of intervening in the world. | Post-postmodern philosopher and critic of realism Hilary Lawson explains closure theory. by IAI_Admin

I am a fully developed human and I failed calculus. TIL am ant.

shirk-work t1_j9xrqkh wrote on February 25, 2023 at 9:21 AM

You can probably understand the principles just fine. Just trying to find the area under a curved line by cutting it into infinitely small blocks. Turns out there's families of curvy lin s where we can prove that there's rules to determine some finite sum and at least segments of other curvy lines that can be approximated within a given start and end point. It turns out that a lot of things in reality share this same relationship of curvy lines and the area below them and it's super useful for engineering. So that's why we learn calculus.

The real pain comes when you try to prove those rules in the complex plane. Makes even math majors cry. That said I've always preferred discrete math and more so the compsci side of things, algorithm analysis. Now machine learning is messing it all up with it's probability and statistics.

dbx999 t1_j9xu1de wrote on February 25, 2023 at 9:54 AM

Yeah I was able to handle derivatives fine but for some reason I just blocked at integrals. I just couldn’t do them.

shirk-work t1_j9xvdju wrote on February 25, 2023 at 10:13 AM

Do you know that puzzle game where you have to slide the blocks to remove a piece? I always thought of it like applying the right moves at the right time to unlock it. Once you know the possible moves you can get a feeling for unlocking things. In that way it's pretty similar to algebraic manipulation. Some people are amazing at that but it's not my favorite. Proofs, number theory, group theory, discrete math is moreso my jam.

Ok_Tip5082 t1_jabo06f wrote on February 28, 2023 at 7:05 AM

100%, was a pure math major who sucked at algebra and arithmetic. They're more brutish skills than are often needed to do math, and definitely than needed to understand it.