this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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I've taken multiple advanced trigonometry courses and still can't really say what trigonometry is. Mathematics is just the fake thing that made puzzle kids feel smart before chess was invented. Oh wow you can make little symbols and they're a special language only you can speak showing how clever you are. Neat they make a circle I thought I could draw one of those but I need a fucking PhD apparently.
I've ended up using calculus and trig for programming multiple times.
You may be able to draw a circle without math, but teaching a computer to draw a circle requires an understanding of math.
All of machine learning is rooted in linear algebra, rust is a very practical programming language that gains most of its power through category theory.
You don't need to know high level math to be a successful developer, but it can really help in many areas. I can't really think of how to categorize which areas high level math is more or less likely to show up in, which I guess itself kind of supports my point.
Just understanding what a derivative is and what an integral is can help you determine what problems are solvable and what aren't, and let you think ahead about what information you might want to hold onto in your data structures. ( Think about what the +C in this integral represents in the real world, and what data you need to pin that down concretely ).
the engineer in me counters that you can trivially teach a computer to draw a circle by giving it an arm that can ONLY draw circles
It is valid to criticize how our current society disproportionately economically reward STEM fields while ignoring social sciences, philosophy, anthropology, etc. and thus often creating these math nerd types who are simultaneously racist or reactionary idiots, but (assuming you're being serious) dismissing math as "fake" only reads as very bitter
I would argue our society disproportionately economically rewards TE fields and S&M (no not like that) get lip service because if they didn't get a mention it would be far too obvious how disconnected economic value is from societal value