|
|
Calculus will help me see the world in a totally new perspective. It will teach me the methods and the mathematically language that I must know "to understand how the wind blows, how the waters flow, how the sun shines, how music reaches your ear, how the planets cycle through the heavens, and much more."(6)The calculus that we know and use today can be applied in a myriad of different ways in the real world. One area of calculus involves the concept of wavelets. Wavelets make it possible to mathematically capture and store data of images and signals at much less data than previously required. "Wavelets allow unprecedented image-compression ratios at landmark speeds" (8). Because of this, areas such as astronomy, acoustics, nuclear engineering, image processing, speech synthesization, and earthquake prediction are being constantly drowned in knew revelations and advancements (7). Calculus is also used to reconstruct synthesized sound into computer data. This computer data takes up much less space, and thus can be stored and transferred more easily. The FBI requires a huge amount of storage for all of its fingerprint data, which contains "34 million cards-a figure comparable to 18 stacks as tall as the Empire State Building in New York City"(9). This storage is accomplished by means of calculus compression algorithms. Calculus is used to study how air, blood, and water flows around vehicles and boats, hoping to increase speed and/or lower resistance. Moreover, calculus can be integrated into Bjerke's principle, stating that any weather prediction can be concluded by examining and measuring certain variables in an instant of time, to more efficiently predict hurricanes, tornados, and weather in general. This is so beneficial because the amount of money required to prepare for a hurricane along a 300 mile coastline is roughly 50 million dollars. Better predictions will result in less false preparations, and, consequentially, enormous economics savings. Combined with physics, calculus is used in weather prediction as well. Calculus, combined with the chaos theory of finding regularities into things that appear irregular and chaotic, can be used to predict and analyze the chaotic pulsations of human heart tissue. This application of calculus could be used to prevent heart attacks and understand heart cancer in greater depth. Finally, calculus and advanced mathematical analysis can be used in deep space exploration and to discover new planetary systems. Calculus is needed to expand and discover new frontiers in many fields of everyday life. If one is interested pursuing a profession in the field of business, accounting, astronomy, acoustics, nuclear engineering, image processing, speech synthesization, meteorology, and pretty much any other profession, an understanding of calculus is necessary. The applications of calculus are endless.
|
|
