I bet you’d never hear this on a gunny blog, but it has to be said:
The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus is amazing.
It may seem incomprehensible to those who haven’t seen it, but those who have will appreciate the Theorem’s simplicity, its power, and its mind-blowing elegance. As much as a math formula can be, the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus is sexy*.
Back when I took integral calculus, these properties were not evident to me. It was simply a formula to be memorized and employed to solve equations. Tonight, after about six hours of solving problem after problem with it, I had an epiphany and sat in stunned amazement for several minutes.
Probably 99% of the world’s population will never need to use calculus, and most of those who do use it won’t really appreciate its beauty. Those of us who do lead very interesting (and often very weird) lives.
* Thank goodness I’m dating a geeky math teacher who understands me and my quirks. Fortunately, she doesn’t get jealous when I think that formulas are sexy. She also thinks I look cute whilst wearing a lab coat. Go figure.
2 thoughts on “I Was Told There’d Be No Math”
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You sound like Robert Heinlein. And that’s a good thing.
You almost make me regret not taking advanced math.
the greatest day of my career was when I read the introduction to the proofs chapter of my groundwater text book. it stated that all of the equations reduce to alegbra and that unless one was interesting in the proofs, one could skip to the next chapter without missing out on anything. 🙂