From: bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Do Engineers Use Calculus?
Organization: Motorola, CCR&D, CORP, Schaumburg, IL
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 19:54:59 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.113259.24017@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
)In article <1992Sep14.022506.9937@uoft02.utoledo.edu> dweddin@uoft02.utoledo.edu writes:

)| a programmer is NOT an engineer. we engineers have to take math and
)| science courses that the typical programmer couldn't handle on his (or
)| her) best day. once a programmer becomes a software engineer, they have 
)| to run this gauntlet like all the other engineering professions. it's the 
)| fear of these math and science classes that keep women from becoming 
)| engineers...not the old boys network.
)
)Really?  Once upon a time I was a programmer.  As it happened, I
)had taken Calculus, but many of my peers had not.  The transition
)from programmer to "software engineer" happened quite miraculously
)and had nothing to do with my knowledge -- it had to do with the
)need to market my abilities.
)
)In 28 years of programming and systems work, I have never seen a
)problem that couldn't be easily solved without using Calculus.
)The last time the Calculus requirement was debated on the net, I
)took an informal survey of my colleagues in the craft.  Of a
)population of 51, number who had used Calculus on the job, ever:
)0.  In fact, the question elicited laughter.  Don't fall for 
)the academic propaganda about math and science: they're in
)business like everyone else, and business means building sales.
)Since you can't take the product back once you've bought it,
)they can sell you anything, including two useless years of
)Calculus.

As an Electrical Engineer who is also very interested in computers, I'd
like to make a comment on the use of Calculus.

Many fields of Electrical Engineering don't really need Calculus _directly_
either.  If you want to design an RF power amplifier, you don't really
use 'Calculus'.  But you may well use concepts that are related to
calculus - transmission lines, for example.  And solving simple circuits
such as say an LC impedance matching circuit has been reduced to arithmatical
manipulations, but its basis in theory lies in the Laplace transform
for solving differential equations.  So you are 'really' solving differential
equations when you utilize complex impedances of the standard jwL or 1/jwC
form to solve a simple AC steady state circuit and/or create a matching
network

(Actually, a lot of the simple stuff like LC matches is automated anyway, but
I digress.)

Similarly, I think computer engineers use things like 'queing theory' all
the time, even though they may  not directly use calculus.  And I'm fairly
sure quing theory uses Calculus in its development - I don't see how it
can be avoided.

A few fields of Electrical Engineering are more heavily into Calculus,
such as Antenna design.  (More partial differental equations.)

Anyway, I'd personally like to see Calculus de-mystified and taught more
widely.  (I also wish I had paid more attention to the humanities courses
way back when.  But part of the problem was that they simply weren't very
well taught.)  Ideally, I'd like to see *everyone* who goes to college
be required to have at least some exposure to Calculus.  I'm not sure how
to avoid the problem of poorly taught  courses, though.  But I really
think that if handled correctly, more teaching of math & Calculus would be
very worthwhile.  I'd also like to see it de-mystified - I think a lot of
people get scared by the name, and if you called it a different name they
would learn it without nearly as much trouble.  (Though I may be being
somewhat  optimistic here.)  The basic concepts IMO are not hard.

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