this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
612 points (98.1% liked)

Science Memes

10885 readers
4106 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

"All the little bits"

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] jukibom@lemmy.world 143 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I would've absolutely paid more attention in maths if the learning material was this utterly contemptuous of "ordinary mathematicians" haha

also full Project Gutenberg text is here https://calculusmadeeasy.org/, thanks for sharing!

[–] 5oap10116@lemmy.world 38 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I'm a chemical engineer and I now better understand calculus slightly better from this post. I did a whole lot of "okkayyy ...let's just stick to the process and wait for this whole thing to blow over"

I know what they were asking me to do but I never really fully understood everything.

[–] Liz@midwest.social 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

okkayyy...let's just stick to the process and wait for this whole thing to blow over

This is such a classic engineer brain solution to the problem. It just warms my heart.

[–] 5oap10116@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

When I started algebra in something like 5th grade I had a huge issue with f(x) and the best answer my teacher gave me was that "the equation is a function of x" and couldn't explain it differently and I couldn't get over the fact that we are not multiplying whatever f is by X. "If we're going to set precedent with notation at least be fucking consistent" - 5th grade me probably

[–] gramie@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I also studied chemical engineering, and throughout high school and university that was exactly it. Calculus was a kind of magic, and you just had to learn all the spells.

With this book I finally understood why the derivative of x^2 is 2x.

[–] pythonoob@programming.dev 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ok I'm no mathematician but I'll still can't see why d(x^2) = 2x.

[–] gramie@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 months ago

This exact explanation is in the book: https://calculusmadeeasy.org/4.html

[–] 5oap10116@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I tried to figure it out myself back in high school but the best I came up with is X^2 -->2x because it just fucking does.

[–] pseudo@jlai.lu 5 points 6 months ago

Mille mercis !