You (or your computer) needs to compute some kind of (approximation to an) integral or derivative in order to do this. Or someone has to have done it for you.
Well, yes, and you (or your computer) needs to be able to compute the reciprocal eigenvector of a large matrix in order to be able to use the Pagerank algorithm to search the internet. Should everyone be learning advanced scientific computing techniques and basic linear algebra before they use Google?
You are allowed to do some things without fully understanding how they work. You say elsewhere in this thread that you have no idea how programming works - does this mean you shouldn't be allowed to alter your search engine preferences?
It is both unnecessary and undesirable for everyone to understand everything about everything - specialism works. Knowing how to compute the integrals involved in deriving a Normal distribution table is unnecessary for being able to make good use of the table, just like knowing how to compute eigenvectors is unnecessary in order to make good use of Google.
Well, yes, and you (or your computer) needs to be able to compute the reciprocal eigenvector of a large matrix in order to be able to use the Pagerank algorithm to search the internet. Should everyone be learning advanced scientific computing techniques and basic linear algebra before they use Google?
This is the car analogy again, and my point was that the car analogy fails. Unless, that is, you also think that the ability to parrot back the sentence "light is a wave" is the legitimate goal of education in physics.
School is not for learning l...
This guy says that the problem is that high-school math education is structured to prepare people to learn calculus in their freshman year of college. But only a small minority of students ever takes calculus, and an even smaller minority ever uses it. And not many people ever make much use of pre-calc subjects like algebra, trig, or analytic geometry.
Instead, high-school math should be structured to prepare people to learn statistics. Probability and basic statistics, he argues, are not only more generally useful than calculus, they are also more fun.
I have to agree with him. What do the people here think?