Previous in Forum: about 3d modeling software   Next in Forum: Instant PC Boot - Why not, really?
Close
Close
Close
9 comments
Rate Comments: Nested
Guru
United States - Member - Technical Fields - Education - Hobbies - Hunting - Popular Science - Weaponology -

Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Texas
Posts: 552
Good Answers: 8

Open Course Ware

02/20/2007 2:56 PM

Hello everyone,

I was looking for some resources to brush up on some forgotten calculus and found something really exciting: open courseware! Check out the following links. The first is to MIT's OCW site and the other is to the OCW consortium.

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/index.htm

http://www.ocwconsortium.org/

__________________
David A Goodman
Register to Reply
Interested in this topic? By joining CR4 you can "subscribe" to
this discussion and receive notification when new comments are added.
Guru
Engineering Fields - Electrical Engineering - New Member

Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: El Lago, Texas, USA
Posts: 2639
Good Answers: 65
#1

Re: Open Course Ware

02/20/2007 3:06 PM

You forgot calculus? How tragic!


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

Register to Reply
Guru

Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 4484
Good Answers: 246
#3
In reply to #1

Re: Open Course Ware

02/20/2007 4:23 PM

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!

__________________
There is more to life than just eating mice.
Register to Reply
Guru
Engineering Fields - Electrical Engineering - New Member

Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: El Lago, Texas, USA
Posts: 2639
Good Answers: 65
#6
In reply to #3

Re: Open Course Ware

02/21/2007 10:09 AM

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.

Register to Reply
Anonymous Poster
#7
In reply to #3

Re: Open Course Ware

02/25/2007 5:17 PM

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

Register to Reply
Guru

Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 4484
Good Answers: 246
#9
In reply to #7

Re: Open Course Ware

02/25/2007 6:14 PM

Exactly.

__________________
There is more to life than just eating mice.
Register to Reply
Commentator

Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 75
#2

Re: Open Course Ware

02/20/2007 4:06 PM

DAG

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

Lonnie

Register to Reply
Anonymous Poster
#4

Re: Open Course Ware

02/20/2007 7:10 PM

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

68torino

Register to Reply
Guru
United States - Member - Technical Fields - Education - Hobbies - Hunting - Popular Science - Weaponology -

Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Texas
Posts: 552
Good Answers: 8
#5
In reply to #4

Re: Open Course Ware

02/21/2007 8:05 AM

"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

__________________
David A Goodman
Register to Reply
Anonymous Poster
#8

Re: Open Course Ware

02/25/2007 5:20 PM

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

Register to Reply
Register to Reply 9 comments
Copy to Clipboard

Users who posted comments:

Anonymous Poster (3); bhankiii (2); Blink (2); DAG (1); lshurtle (1)

Previous in Forum: about 3d modeling software   Next in Forum: Instant PC Boot - Why not, really?

Advertisement