Who uses calculus on a regular basis?

Here is a quick refresher on the basics of calculus:
Fizzics Fizzle: Advanced: Brief Calculus Overview

I think it is used mostly by jobs that involve trajectories of things.
So, anytime there is a non-linear relationship between velocity and acceleration of an object, calculus allows the person to determine the velocity at a point in time.
For example, rocket scientists trying to calculate the trajectory of an Apollo mission that orbits the Moon.

Also, some financial calculations involve non-linear formulas that suite themselves to calculus.

I don't personally know anyone who uses it regularly.
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Use calculus all the time, but I am an engineer. Actually in my work now it usually is more often partial differential equation principles, which builds off of calculus.

Once a person becomes comfortable with the theory of calculus (derivatives and integrals), it makes understanding many things much easier like economics and finance.

 

At times I have been paid to be an economist, a statistician, a trader, and a financial analyst. Calculus is used in a variety of degrees in all of those depending upon the depth of the analysis.

Example One: one can run a simple linear regression in a spreadsheet with limited knowledge of calculus or even algebra and get useful results if one has a great sample or better yet a limited and defined population. Understanding where sampling can present really misleading results as population and variance increases gets much more into distributions where the tools of calculus are absolutely essential for developing useful and meaningful results.

Example Two: For most residential customers their electric bill is an integration of energy usage second by second that is compiled into a bill based on kilowatt hours for the month. Put into simple terms, I call them blow dryer hours. If you use a 1000 watt blow dryer for an hour that is basically a kilowatt. Your electric range can use about four times that amount or more. A powerful home computer maybe 1/3 of that. So to calculate the electric bill we would take the integration of the time of use of each appliance in the month and add them up to get energy use in the month and that is then multiplied by the unit rate.

So, Calculus is all around us! And used by all--even if we do not pay attention to the mechanics on regular basis.

 

Go online and use the Kahn academy courses. There are a number of topics on Calculus there.
Khan Academy

Bdel

 

Sadly, my calculus skills have atrophied to about nil these days, but used it heavily in the past.

My most frequent usage was in finding the minimum and maximum points of various equations.

Great skill to have, and even if you don't keep it up, calculus gives you an insight/appreciation as to how to FIND the answer to many a problem.

 

The day I looked at a blackboard and could not find a numeral on it, I knew my math limit had been reached.

 

^^^^^ BINGO!!!

I never took calculus and I even graduated High School without ever having to take algebra.

 

The only useful application of calculus I've ever come across is the ability to maximize profit by taking the derivative of the revenue and cost functions.

 

"I know my Calculus, it says you plus me equals us" 2gether


In a serious note.....I remember 3X^2 can be derived as 6X^1....I think.

 

When I'm driving, I'm fully aware that any speed from 0 to the speed of light will not harm me, given reasonable momentum. At any given speed on the highway, I know the abrupt and sudden stop is what will get me.

That's the most used calculus of my day.

 

Had to take it to get the MBA..........never used it since.
And I don't miss it. 😃

 

I actually have found quite a few uses for it. I have an engineering degree, so I guess it was drilled into me pretty good for many years....

I've used it many times for projectile calculations. It comes in handy because if you forget some basic physics, most velocity, time, and distance formulas can be derived starting from the basic acceleration of gravity = 9.8m/s^2.

My most usefull application comes from some vehicle performance prediction calculations I've made. I've done some wind tunnel work on my race car, and combined with engine dyno data, some cool performace estimates can be had. I was working on creating a program for a while that allowed me to estimate lap time differences based on horsepower curves using on board RPM data and dyno data. Not direct calculus, but the concept of it was there...the smaller the time slices I broke the data into, the more accurate the results.

I often debate this topic with other people I know that don't have a math background. My girlfriend used to get upset when we would go to the grocery store as I was always trying to calculate the price per unit I was paying for items to see if I was getting a savings in larger quantities. No calculus, but I think if I had not made it through 4 years of calc, my math skills wouldn't have been good enough to do that kind of thing.

The way I see it, we forget the upper level of things we were taught. In other words, if the highest math course someone took was Geometry, then they might remember some Algebra. If they made it to Trig, perhaps they remember some Geometry. Making it through calc means you probably remember most of your Algebra, Trig, and Geometry even 10 years later.

 

I just have in front of me a pencil and a sheet of paper and loads of partial differential equations describing the thermal behaviour of a Diesel oxidation catalyst (Or at least I hope they're describing it )

 

"differentiated" ...

Given the function :

y(x) = 3*x^2

Evaluate at x+dx:

y(x+dx) = 3*(x+dx)^2
y(x+dx) = 3*x^2 + 6*x*dx + 3*dx^2

The slope of the original function at x is :

dy/dx = lim (as dx -> 0) [y(x+dx) - y(x)]/dx
dy/dx = lim (as dx -> 0) [(3*x^2 + 6*x*dx + 3*dx^2) - (3*x^2)]/dx
dy/dx = lim (as dx -> 0) [6*x*dx + 3*dx^2]/dx
dy/dx = lim (as dx -> 0) [6*x +3*dx]
dy/dx = 6*x

 

Good lord the limit definition of a derivative is obnoxious.

Up4speed, if your daughter needs calculus help, have her Google either PatrickJMT or the Kahn Academny. Can't go wrong with either one.

 

perhaps

Can you derive (fundamentally) the derivative of any arbitrary function ... or a specific one ... without it?

 

Post of the month.

 

Maple can.

 

well played, sir ... well played

 

22,189 days without using algebra.