There is a growing push to teach statistics or more linear algebra instead of calculus to engineers.
My question then, is why does acquiring an electrical engineering degree require so much math?
Being familiar with somewhat advanced maths topics (fourier/laplace transforms, differential equations, etc.) can only be beneficial. It's another tool in your arsenal that you take out when you need to tackle slightly more complex problems.
From personal experience, the people that speak loudest against "wasting time" to learn them either:
a) never learned them themselves, or
b) took a class and memorized procedures without ever fully grasping them, therefore never applying the knowledge on real life problems.
You have no shortage of mediocre engineers in the world. Strive to become better.
I actually think calculus education is useful. It does not even get hard until you get to multivariable equations.
My question then, is why does acquiring an electrical engineering degree require so much math?
Education is for the benefit of the student, not necessarily to provide a set of skills which are immediately usable. Most people who go to work after a college need to do quite a bit of specific learning directly at their place of work. If they have a broad educational base, they can learn new things faster and more effectively.
TAoE is a good practical handbook, not a formal textbook. From an academic perspective, it is at very low level, far from the state of the art.
It's designed to be a quick reference book, but it's not designed to give you the required insight to be a good researcher in electronics.
Exactly.
If university spits out people that have all the knowledge for a job, then it is a trade school producing technicians not a university producing engineers. (ObCaveat: nothing wrong with that).
For a neat example of that distinction by one of the masters of science fiction, Isaac Asimov, spead read "Profession" at http://www.abelard.org/asimov.php
you can also simply accept the stuff that has already been proven over and over and move on ...
Every year millions of students get questions on their finals to prove this or that theorem. Why ? Do math teachers really have no imagination ? Those theorems are sometimes thousands of years old and have been proven by billions of students through the ages. Do they really think there is need to prove it once again ? are they still unsure about them ?
TAoE is a good practical handbook, not a formal textbook. From an academic perspective, it is at very low level, far from the state of the art.
It's designed to be a quick reference book, but it's not designed to give you the required insight to be a good researcher in electronics.
Yesss, tggzzz (and Blueskull) homes in on the real reason. A proper university is not a trade school. Their function is not to create job ready tradesmen or even engineers, but rather the next generation of professors/researchers.
This type of thread occurs with some regularity on this forum. Almost invariably what is behind it is some combination of math angst, or a need to feel superior to academics, or a need to overcome a deep-seated inferiority complex which then leads to the preceding. "My professor is so useless, couldn't design a working circuit if his life depended on it", ect.
Math is tough, lets go shopping, says Barbie girl.
I am not pointing fingers at the original poster. I am one of the few who revelled in the Math and other arcane subjects during my Uni days even though I knew I wouldn’t stay in the academic track. Enjoy the academic life while you can. before the real world sucks the life out of you.
What I was finding confusing was that in some forums when asked, a lot of engineers were saying that they haven't used calculus since college.
And it was just making me wonder if, other than in certain applications, you technically could have a person who didn't know any calculus or physics work in the same position as the engineer who had to learn all that stuff and yet design circuits just as well.
BTW, this question is out of curiosity, I have no issue with math or physics or any of that, I actually love calculus and calculus-based math in fact.
IN FACT, I was also wondering because I found it a bit depressing that, if you are a person who loves math and science and the arcane engineering stuff (of which electrical engineering and electronics has tons of), you wouldn't actually have an excuse to use it in your real-world job
TAoE is a good practical handbook, not a formal textbook. From an academic perspective, it is at very low level, far from the state of the art.
It's designed to be a quick reference book, but it's not designed to give you the required insight to be a good researcher in electronics.
Well it looks very advanced to my ultra beginner self, so have I got a lot to learn
IN FACT, I was also wondering because I found it a bit depressing that, if you are a person who loves math and science and the arcane engineering stuff (of which electrical engineering and electronics has tons of), you wouldn't actually have an excuse to use it in your real-world job
I take a different point of view about engineering. I don't want to DO engineering, I want to get paid to BUY engineering. There's more money in managing engineering than there is in doing it.
IN FACT, I was also wondering because I found it a bit depressing that, if you are a person who loves math and science and the arcane engineering stuff (of which electrical engineering and electronics has tons of), you wouldn't actually have an excuse to use it in your real-world job
I take a different point of view about engineering. I don't want to DO engineering, I want to get paid to BUY engineering. There's more money in managing engineering than there is in doing it.
TAoE is a good practical handbook, not a formal textbook. From an academic perspective, it is at very low level, far from the state of the art.
It's designed to be a quick reference book, but it's not designed to give you the required insight to be a good researcher in electronics.
Well it looks very advanced to my ultra beginner self, so have I got a lot to learn
Yesss, tggzzz (and Blueskull) homes in on the real reason. A proper university is not a trade school. Their function is not to create job ready tradesmen or even engineers, but rather the next generation of professors/researchers.
This type of thread occurs with some regularity on this forum. Almost invariably what is behind it is some combination of math angst, or a need to feel superior to academics, or a need to overcome a deep-seated inferiority complex which then leads to the preceding. "My professor is so useless, couldn't design a working circuit if his life depended on it", ect.
Math is tough, lets go shopping, says Barbie girl.
I am not pointing fingers at the original poster. I am one of the few who revelled in the Math and other arcane subjects during my Uni days even though I knew I wouldn’t stay in the academic track. Enjoy the academic life while you can. before the real world sucks the life out of you.
I want to be clear again that I have no math angst nor am trying to find an excuse to not do it or anything like that. I actually love mathematics and am very much enjoying working through calculus right now. I then plan to work through linear algebra, differential equations, and beyond. My question was purely curiosity in terms of how much math is actually needed in the real world of engineering is all, because I had encountered some threads on Reddit with engineers saying they haven't used it since college and because some electronics books had said it isn't much needed to design good circuits.
IN FACT, I was also wondering because I found it a bit depressing that, if you are a person who loves math and science and the arcane engineering stuff (of which electrical engineering and electronics has tons of), you wouldn't actually have an excuse to use it in your real-world job
IN FACT, I was also wondering because I found it a bit depressing that, if you are a person who loves math and science and the arcane engineering stuff (of which electrical engineering and electronics has tons of), you wouldn't actually have an excuse to use it in your real-world job
I take a different point of view about engineering. I don't want to DO engineering, I want to get paid to BUY engineering. There's more money in managing engineering than there is in doing it.
If you have no passion for engineering, then sure, go to whichever makes the most money. But me personally, I could never go into management.
I am old(ish) but by no means rich... but old enough that I can offer a tidbit of advice that might help somebody, or then again may be completely useless.
Even if you have a passion for engineering you will never make a fortune only off of the results of your own effort, To make your way up the ladder (if that is your aim) then you have to do it by taking a small cut of the effort of many others. That might mean team leader, or manager, or CEO, otherwise you will never get to be an richer than your hourly charge out rate (less everybody else's cut of your efforts) dictates.
That is why the Uber founders will be rich, and their drivers, opps sorry, independent contractors will be on or below minimum wage and working 60+ hour weeks.
My question then, is why does acquiring an electrical engineering degree require so much math?
Education is for the benefit of the student, not necessarily to provide a set of skills which are immediately usable. Most people who go to work after a college need to do quite a bit of specific learning directly at their place of work. If they have a broad educational base, they can learn new things faster and more effectively.
Exactly.
If university spits out people that have all the knowledge for a job, then it is a trade school producing technicians not a university producing engineers. (ObCaveat: nothing wrong with that).
For a neat example of that distinction by one of the masters of science fiction, Isaac Asimov, spead read "Profession" at http://www.abelard.org/asimov.php
My question then, is why does acquiring an electrical engineering degree require so much math?
Education is for the benefit of the student, not necessarily to provide a set of skills which are immediately usable. Most people who go to work after a college need to do quite a bit of specific learning directly at their place of work. If they have a broad educational base, they can learn new things faster and more effectively.
Exactly.
If university spits out people that have all the knowledge for a job, then it is a trade school producing technicians not a university producing engineers. (ObCaveat: nothing wrong with that).
For a neat example of that distinction by one of the masters of science fiction, Isaac Asimov, spead read "Profession" at http://www.abelard.org/asimov.php
Nope! That is what the modern fake technical education does---"monkey see, monkey do".
The old Technician training system was wide ranging, & albeit at a lower level, taught a wide gamut of theory.
Since that time, I haven't had any occasion to use calculus, so it has slowly drifted away.
As I am now retired, I have to learn how to sleep in front of the TV, & drool down my cardigan, so I doubt I will ever have the spare time to revise any branch of mathematics.
PS:I think my iPad is after me!
It substituted "die" for "sleep" in the above paragraph!
Since that time, I haven't had any occasion to use calculus, so it has slowly drifted away.
As I am now retired, I have to learn how to sleep in front of the TV, & drool down my cardigan, so I doubt I will ever have the spare time to revise any branch of mathematics.
Since that time, I haven't had any occasion to use calculus, so it has slowly drifted away.
As I am now retired, I have to learn how to sleep in front of the TV, & drool down my cardigan, so I doubt I will ever have the spare time to revise any branch of mathematics.
It seems that differential and integral calculus in particular is one of the things that is frequently labelled as 'useless'. Now, if you are only talking about finding derivatives and integrals of symbolic expressions, this is something that a lot of people will only need to do relatively rarely - I needed to use the quotient rule the other day for the first time in years, had to look it up. But there is so much more to calculus than this. Understanding the ideas behind finite difference approximations and numerical integration, related rates, graph sketching - I use this all the time. Especially in signal processing, it is a key skill to be able to think "the frequency looks like this as a function of time, what does the phase look like? What will it look like after we differentiate it/integrate it/multiply it with this other signal?"
My question then, is why does acquiring an electrical engineering degree require so much math?
Education is for the benefit of the student, not necessarily to provide a set of skills which are immediately usable. Most people who go to work after a college need to do quite a bit of specific learning directly at their place of work. If they have a broad educational base, they can learn new things faster and more effectively.
Exactly.
If university spits out people that have all the knowledge for a job, then it is a trade school producing technicians not a university producing engineers. (ObCaveat: nothing wrong with that).
For a neat example of that distinction by one of the masters of science fiction, Isaac Asimov, spead read "Profession" at http://www.abelard.org/asimov.php
Nope! That is what the modern fake technical education does---"monkey see, monkey do".
The old Technician training system was wide ranging, & albeit at a lower level, taught a wide gamut of theory.
There is and always has been a wide range of education. Asimov's story was written in 1957 and is as valid then as now.
QuoteSince that time, I haven't had any occasion to use calculus, so it has slowly drifted away.
As I am now retired, I have to learn how to sleep in front of the TV, & drool down my cardigan, so I doubt I will ever have the spare time to revise any branch of mathematics.
PS:I think my iPad is after me!
It substituted "die" for "sleep" in the above paragraph!
I too really love auto-corrupt entry text systems.