I wish my high school and undergraduate courses had taught #calculus through the lens of #physics instead of keeping it all abstract. I'm relearning a lot of it now that way, and it actually makes sense and "sticks" because the equations describe real things and I have a reason to know them.
#math #education
@timorl @2ck It is irrelevant if people have different views on Calculus. What matters is that it is presented as theory with rigorous proofs. Mathematics is a field based on proofs. What I stated was not false as theory is required for proper application. It is true that Calculus like operations were being used before the discovery of Calculus. Euler's Method is a good example of this. There are problems that have been proven to not have a solution.
In summary, Theory and rigorous proofs are the foundation. Examples and applications should logically follow after this.
@AmpBenzScientist sure... you know how my education went, person I've never met /s
I did learn proofs, and they are important, but for calculus specifically there are things like path integrals and Taylor series that were introduced in a way that just made me think, "why would you think to do that? why that way?" Back then, I didn't see the connection to real things and little time was spent on the mapping to physics, so the calculus that was used in physics was inscrutable to me.
That's my take right now anyway. Science and math education isn't easy or universal -- different students need different things at different times. Maybe it would have been just as difficult to learn *back then* even with the refocus I proposed. The physics interests me more now because I'm interested in optics and that for reasons I didn't have in high school or early in my undergrad.
@2ck Oftentimes the whys are answered in another course. That's when it becomes clear. Time answers many questions.
@AmpBenzScientist That's a false dichotomy, you can have proofs *and* proper motivating examples. They don't even have to be physics, there are other ways in which calculus represents parts of the world. @2ck