Timeline for Why does undergraduate discrete math require calculus?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 12, 2011 at 17:47 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by S. Carnahan♦ | ||
| Jan 13, 2011 at 2:33 | answer | added | kcrisman | timeline score: 3 | |
| Sep 7, 2010 at 17:41 | comment | added | Thierry Zell | To make my previous remark (rant?) a little bit clearer: in the US, if a student tells you they took Calc 1 & 2 in college, you will have a fair idea of what they saw (note that there are variations already; also, I'm not talking about what the student knows). On the other hand, if someone has Discrete Math on their transcript, you will have only the vaguest idea of what transpired in that class. | |
| Sep 7, 2010 at 16:57 | comment | added | Thierry Zell | I have a big issue with this question, and that is the unspoken assumption that there is such a thing as "undergraduate discrete math". (I'm not blaming the OP, btw, everyone does it!) The subject is so vast that an UG math course could (and sometimes will) contain anything, including very calculus-oriented topics. Asymptotic notations, generating functions, I would want 2 solid semesters of calc in students before broaching these subjects. The distinction between discrete and calc is arbitrary to begin with, or at least does not appear in applications, hence the "Concrete Math" appellation. | |
| Aug 31, 2010 at 16:44 | answer | added | J W | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 5, 2010 at 18:38 | vote | accept | johntantalo | ||
| Jun 5, 2010 at 16:17 | comment | added | darij grinberg | I don't know how it's done in US, but here in Germany the first calculus course contains some mathematical basics such as induction, the Peano axiom, the notions of sequences and functions... they actually belong into Discrete Mathematics, but Discrete Mathematics rather prefers to use them then to introduce them. Of course, real calculus is not needed in Discrete Mathematics until much later (and usually, all applications of calculus in Discrete Maths require even more linear algebra than calculus). | |
| Jun 5, 2010 at 13:33 | answer | added | Gerry Myerson | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jun 5, 2010 at 4:29 | answer | added | Noah Snyder | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jun 4, 2010 at 22:48 | comment | added | Gerald Edgar | Instead of asking US, why not ask THEM? | |
| Jun 4, 2010 at 22:01 | answer | added | Victor Protsak | timeline score: 5 | |
| Jun 4, 2010 at 21:19 | answer | added | hypercube | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 4, 2010 at 20:33 | answer | added | PersonX | timeline score: 22 | |
| Jun 4, 2010 at 20:09 | answer | added | Alexander Woo | timeline score: 52 | |
| Jun 4, 2010 at 19:15 | answer | added | engelbrekt | timeline score: 5 | |
| Jun 4, 2010 at 19:11 | answer | added | Andrey Rekalo | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jun 4, 2010 at 19:03 | comment | added | Will Jagy | Last year I tutored a kid in the computer science department "discrete mathematics" course, alternate to the mathematics department one. The lectures went through incredible gyrations to avoid calculus arguments that really would have simplified everything. So my response is that the course you want is really hard, and in that situation students do better with things stretched out. | |
| Jun 4, 2010 at 18:45 | answer | added | coudy | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jun 4, 2010 at 18:32 | history | asked | johntantalo | CC BY-SA 2.5 |