Good day, great day

[alkatran]

Well, I was in math class.. you know, relaxing, not paying too much attention (not that attention was needed or anything)...

We were doing tangents, you know what they are.. finding the pente (umm... slope?) at a point on a quadratic.

Anyways, the teacher kept going on about limits and such (oh.. sooo complicated) while I messed around with numbers. Now, completely on my own, I figured out that 2ax + b = slope of ax^2 + bx + c. (I basicly just did x^2, then 2x^2, then 2x^2 + 1 etc.. trial and error.. first tries.. lol)

I moved on to third degree. Figured since it was 2ax, and 1b, it would be 3ax^2 + 2bx + c. Dead hit. First guess. Swear to god.

I then figured out that the slope of any polynomial is all the sum of all exponentials divided by x * the original exponent.


Look ahead in book.. yep.. it;s there (you know.. 40 pages ahead )





Anyways.. just figured it was cool I figured it out on my own.



Oh, and to top the day off. I sped up the update procedure on the program I'm working on by about 100x with a binary tree search... oh yes that was sweet.

[sql_lall]

Congrats - u just rediscovered differential calculus!
Now the hard bit...try going in reverse (integrate) with functions like sin(x), e^x, and 1/x...

ANyway, congrats. What program are you working on that hass a BST for updating? Some parsing engine?

<-- me thinks emoticons have gone a *bit* too far

[azteched]

Newton in our midst.

[Acidic]

This was a few weeks ago now, but during a break before maths I was going through a past paper. I came accross a number sequence question and I always have loved them. I started drifting off course and wondered if there was a quick way to convert U[sub]n/[sub] to S[sub]n/[sub]

I tried a few things and within 10 minutes fugured out that you just have to integrate U[sub]n/[sub] and then add 1/2 the co-efficient of the n with the highest power.

Lo and behold, the lesson after that break we had a question;
covert this U[sub]n/[sub] into S[sub]n/[sub]. I did it in about 10 seconds while it took the others, well a bit longer. Afterwards I just told them about this and the teacher said well done, and that she'd never thought of doing it that way.

edit: or at least it worked on the ones I tried, I'm trying it on more complex ones now.

edit2: OK, it only works for simple ones, but I'm sure there is another method for others. I just can't be bothered right now.

[wossname]

I often think about this kind of situation.

Let me fill you in...

<rant>
Born: Yes. In 1980 into a quiet leafy suburb of Derby. Not exactly the hotbed of technological advancement. I got an Atari 520 STFM for my 8th birthday and my life changed forever.

I've loved computers ever since but I only realised that us mere mortals could program them ourselves, when I was 19. It had just never occurred to me at all. I had just thought that it was big companies that could make software. Bugger.

If I had started programming when I was 13-14 years old I would have nailed maths at GCSE and A-Level and would probably had a masters degree under my belt by now.

I look back at myself as I was in college and see a guy that just didn't have the knack for complex maths. I have taught myself so much in the intervening years that it scares me.

I'm not a good programmer but I am sure I have advanced in the field enough to realise that programming should be on the syllabus even at late primary school level. And I DON'T mean Logo or any of that crap. I mean Visual Basic programming.

I really missed the boat on programming and I'll always be behind but I love it and I'll never stop doing it.

We just don't encourage people to think anymore do we? There are NO science programmes on TV and absolutely no motivation for kids to think these days. All thinking is done for them. That sucks.

Sorry about the rant but I was let down badly by the education system and so was everyone in the classes of '96.

</rant>

[Acidic]

<rant:>
born: no
</rant>

[wossname]

Well, I was.

[alkatran]

Newton didn't have a graphic calculator to check his answers in under a second... But I'll take the compliment none the less, lol.

You've never figured out something a week before it was taught? (I mean.. this is like the third time this has happened... of course with the other it was functions (lol, programming, haha, haha)).

[Acidic]

in primary school I was years ahead. Only in maths though.

Now I have to read over my notes in order to keep up.

Speaking of which, I have my maths exam tommorrow (paper 1) then paper2 friday morning.

[alkatran]

In elementary school I was ... I actually don't remember elementary school that well... I guess I was probably ahead there too.. but I was the "model" (shut the hell up type) student then. I wonder if my mom was slipping ADD pills into my food...

Then again, I spent my time reading when I was little. Now I program.

[wossname]

I was generally better at physics at school / college. That's mainly thanks to Mr Howard (great teacher).

I did a theoretical paper on "Why Time Travel is Impossible" in college and got 100 out of 100. The idea behind it was a little naive but well presented. That wasn't on the syllabus and I wasn't allowed to submit it as coursework but I was marked in accordance with syllabus guidelines.

Does that count?

I also devised a new way to calibrate light gates and on the same day dropped a new £800 oscilloscope, so on balance I was less than popular that day. :groan of recollection: