Calculus?

I would assume that Calculus is "Differential Calculus" and Calculus 2 is "Integral Calculus"...

Martee
Magnum Games

...neither of which is going to have any application to your compsci classes, or anything else that relates to the real world. Fun, isn''t it?

-Moth

yeah, calc 1 is differential, calc 2 is integral. it''s essential. trust me.

No math is a waste. Calculus may not be directly aplicable to what you program, but from it you will gain more problem solving abilities. You can also create better and more efficiant equations for your games with the use of Calculas. You can create a generic equation using calculus and you can then specialize the equation to fit a specific need and remove the calculos part (kind of like introductory physics does to juse about every equation).

I think I spelled calculos about four different ways. Can you minor in spelling in college? I realy need to learn to do that.

Mike, you stole the words right out of my mouth. Although Im not the best at it, I believe Calculus is fun as hell. Before I took it, I never knew there were so many things you can to with math!

Konrad
{!!!!!!!!!BLAH!!!!!!!!!}

Yeah, like areas of irregular shaped objects, weird volumes and all that kind of stuff

-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)

just take it. you''re going to have to anyway, like i said. and when you ARE learning in there, start thinking about how you would program such a function in code. for instance, when you get to studying position with respect to delta time, you''ll understand better how velocity, and acceleration are derived. and you''ll see graphically how the behavior of these derivatives are. then, you''ll be able to apply this knowledge to your physics classes, because, you know that acceleration is force over mass. you can implement THIS in your code, too. ( i have! it was a bitch, but it was fun when i got it working! and thanks to Chris Heckers physics articles, too!) i digress. it''s important. you''ll have fun. just think up game algorithms, and try to apply what calculus you''re learning for the day to a game function.

a2k

Next: algorithm analysis...

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Anyway, calculus may be hard, but so was coding when you guys first started. In the end, which would you prefer? Knowing how to code, or not knowing how to code?

- DarkMage139
++++++++++++++++
I can do things, things you never knew,
I can change your world if you only knew.

I can do miracles if you want me to.
Anything is possible, I'll prove it to you.

haha, I never understood why I took a "Concepts of Mathematics" course. Let''s prove there''s infinite prime numbers people!

Any positive and whole number can be obtained by adding up to three prime numbers. I don''t know if it is proven, but if it is, it can be proved that there are an infinite quantity of prime number. On of these numbers will always be greater or equal than the others, so there will always be a prime larger/equal to a third of the number to obtain. This way, prime numbers range to at least a third of infinity, which is infinity.

That is if the first mentionned theorem is proven, which I think it is.

EL

----------------------------------------
"Inash neteia haeg joa kavari quilm..." SD4

Calc will help you with programming. Think: the first 3D FPS engine (or at least Wolf 3D, if that wasn''t first) is based on using trig triangles to compute distances to walls, so the engine can scale them. Leap forward 10 years to the Q3A engine: Just think of how much more you''re going to need beyond sine, cosine, and tangents.

--



All hail the Technoweenie!

My arc must''ve been different than peoples'' here:
Calc 1: basic calculus (differential & integral)
Calc 2: trig analysis, series
Calc 3: vector calc (3d, 4d calculus)

Then it was engineering-specific. More series & differential equations (much different than calculus, trust me). That class killed me. Heterogenous & homogenous solutions--blecha!

I''m from the Netherlands and am 24 years old, and it was only a few months ago since I first heard of calculus.

I have studied electo-technics and Informatics in Higher Education. Both studies use the most math of all studies available in The Netherlands (except pure math study).
Math was always the thing I was good at, but calculus is completely new to me!

I still don''t know exactly: Is it an application? Is it a name for a study? Is it another name for "math" in Amerika? What is it?

Calculus is a branch of mathematics which deals with such things as finding slopes, and areas/volumes under curves. Would someone else please expand on this definition? I''m not exactly a calculus expert...

Martee
Magnum Games

Calculus is the name for the branch of math that Newton (I believe?) discovered. It began with the question: how do you find the slope of a linear function at any given point? Since slope is defined as "rise over run" (or y / x), the solution is the limit equation:
f''(x) = lim (h->0) (f(x + h) - f(x)) / h

When solved for polynomials, the solution is the exponent times the original equation with the exponent decreased by one. Therefore the slope at any point x in the function 2x^3 is 6x^2. This is what we call "differentiating".

Then, of course, you can go backward; given the function of a slope, you can deduce the function that would describe its line. This reverse process (called "integrating") will give you the area created by the segments of the X axis and the line. For instance, the integral of x^2 is (x^3) / 3. The area "under" the graph x^2 up to the point = 4 is (4^3) / 3.

So, this is calculus. If this sounds familiar to you, this is what we''re talking about. If it''s not, well..you probably haven''t used it yet.

quote:

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Original post by Moth
...neither of which is going to have any application to your compsci classes, or anything else that relates to the real world.

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(That big buzzer sound from Family Feud)

If your talking about writing a database API or being a web designer, sure, but if your talking about being a top-notch game developer you better think again. Go look at the math behind lighting, game physics, inverse kinematics, curve fitting, etc. and you''ll see a lot of Calculus or the results of Calculus. Velocity and acceleration are Calculus even though you might use a little algebraic equation derived through Calculus. Hell, even the math behind one of the most popular questions on here, How Do I Handle Time In My Game, is actually Calculus.

"Calculus teaches you how to do Algebra right."
Mr. Carey, my high school Calculus teacher

"Calculus is the mathematics of motion and change."
First line of my college Calculus text ''Calculus and Analytic Geometry, 6th Edition'' by Thomas and Finney.

Mike Roberts
aka milo
mlbobs@telocity.com

Actually, I'm going into 3-D modelling / animation... and I don't *want* to know how that nice IK system works.

But, reading everyone's arguments, I guess I'm convinced. Calc is a perfectly reasonable requirement for compsci majors. And carrots are good for you... but it doesn't mean I have to like either of the above.

-Moth

I can spell, yes I can...

Edited by - Moth on August 22, 2000 7:33:41 PM

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Original post by Shinomori Aoshi

haha, I never understood why I took a "Concepts of Mathematics" course. Let''s prove there''s infinite prime numbers people!

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If the number of primes was finite, e.g. n, you could write all prime numbers to a list where p(0) is the first prime and p(n-1) is the last prime. Now let x = p(0)*p(1)*...*p(n-2)*p(n-1)+1.
If you divide x by any of the primes p(0),p(1),...p(n-2),p(n-1) the remainder is 1. So x must have other prime factors and a finite list of primes can''t be complete.

GA

quote:

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Next: algorithm analysis...

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there is such a thing like that??? if is i realy need to make it. still on time to go back to school

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I´m nothing.
So i´m perfect.