Engineering

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A place to geek out about engineering, fabrication, and design. All disciplines are welcome. Ask questions, share knowledge, show off projects you're proud of, and share interesting things you find.

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My five year old asked me what calculus is. (pixelfed.crimedad.work)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/engineering

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/56030

cross-posted from: https://pixelfed.crimedad.work/p/crimedad/664838819785277759

My five year old asked me what calceulus is.

The context is that I'm an engineer and she wanted to know what I learned in engineering school, so I said calculus. (In my case, I only made it to pre-calc in highschool.) I swear I'm not the type of parent to try and push this stuff on her. I said it's about understanding how things change and then I tried to illustrate it. I'm open to suggestions on how I could answer her better.

#calculus #engineering #parenting

@[email protected]

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Explain the difference between coasting on a bike and pedaling. When you pedal, you speed up. Calculus compares how much faster one person speeds up than another.

At 5, she's not going to grasp charts or numbers, but something familiar to her could work.

Source: father of three and taught my oldest basic algebra (variables) so we could make a game on Scratch together when he was 6 or so.