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Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

Looks like a paywall.

Yes, a calculus formula might have been used somewhere in that process, and was used by the finance person and dev. That doesn't mean I, or any other person, needed to know it.

As a dev at a financial institution, I've never needed to implement calculus formulas. Most calculations and formulas I've dealt with are algebra and stats. These usually are just a matter of using standard libraries too. So most devs aren't implementing formulas themselves, but just utilizing standard libraries.

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> Looks like a paywall.

That's odd. It loads up just fine for me with no paywall.

Check this out for more: https://allusesof.com/math/51-amazing-uses-of-calculus-in-re...

The point is that calculus is used to solve all sorts of problems. Sure, you can say "...not in my experience" but that's one experience and not representative. You just happen to a) not work in a realm where Calculus is used and/or b) work within that realm only on problems without Calculus.

I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm saying that it isn't commonly used. Objectively, a great majority of people can live their lives without even thinking about or performing calculus outside of the classroom.

That is why I questioned whether knowing calculus is really a piece of fundamental knowledge that allows a 10x performance increase. For the majority of people it's not going to help them. Even if they deal with calculus in their field, I don't see it providing a 10x increase because unless one is mathematician, the calculus portion of their job will be inconsequential and likely be automated or computed for them.

The way I would put this is that it's important to be familiar with calculus, to know that it exists and have a sense of where it tends to pop up. From that familiarity, you can look up the details on demand. But being entirely unaware of the techniques of calculus would probably be hindrance.

> Objectively, a great majority of people can live their lives without even thinking about or performing calculus

OK no argument there. The OP statement was "For example ... Calculus for solving all sorts of problems" so it appeared you were taking issue with the idea that Calculus can be used to solve all sorts of problems. Your argument is clearer now: even if Calculus can be used to solve all sorts of problems that doesn't mean that it is "fundamental knowledge" for most people.

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