Open Course Ware

You forgot calculus? How tragic!

(this is great - I'm distributing it to my engineers)

Anyone who could forget calculus probably beats his kids too!

Actually, I've half been intending to start a thread on the (questionable?) utility of calculus (or even of anything beyond the simplest of math) to practicing engineers. Many things that we might have sought to do with elegant calculation years ago can be done with spreadsheets so easily today: it is pretty easy to look at some phenomena at 10 or 20 discrete points, using a a spreadsheet.

I was a math whiz kid almost half a century ago. Now I'm a math idiot. I use a little arithmetic, swap in numbers for variables pretty often, and use some trig... but that's about it.

Re MIT -- their open courseware project is really impressive. The idea is that anyone in the world with access to a computer can have access to coursware from one of the world's greatest universities. Pretty cool!

I would normally agree with this, especially being a digital designer. But just a couple of days ago I found myself in need of designing an analog integrator, and it was nice to be able to see and understand the calculus for it in a text book, even though no actual calculus was required to design the circuit.

are you saying, use it or lose it? And that, the easier it comes the quicker it goes? I would agree.

Exactly.

DAG

Wish I could say that I "forgot" some calculus--I never really "got" very much of it. Thanks for the links!!

Lonnie

I've got a calculus............it don't work tho...........batteries are dead.

68torino

"the batteries are dead"... I think this more adequately describes the condition of my calculus. I just don't get to use it much teaching high school students! I wanted to brush up a bit as I hope to return to grad school soon...

I was just so impressed that someone could have access to something like the lectures and courses that are given at MIT, I just knew it had to be shared with the CR4 crowd.

DAG

As with any math, learning calculus can be easier than it would seem: learn from instructors; avoid professors.