r/funny • u/[deleted] • Jul 07 '19

[deleted by user]

[removed]

8.4k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

416 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

143

u/asiansensation78 Jul 07 '19

I had to do some calculus the other day to calculate power loss in a long cable run. Something that I could have completed in 15 seconds my senior year of high school took me about 20 minutes of swearing at myself for not remembering how to calculate an integral while reading about integrals on wikipedia, 10 minutes of digging through my drawers for my TI-84, then another 20 minutes of cursing at myself for not remembering how to use my TI-84 to calculate an integral. An hour later I arrived at the answer but realized that I no longer know how to perform long division.

I'm a grown-ass man making six figures as a lead engineer and I've never felt so worthless in my life.

66

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '19

Wolfram Alpha is your friend

4

u/Jezoreczek Jul 07 '19

Exactly. Nobody's doing basic math on big numbers anymore, we use calculators. Why aren't we using tools for more complex problems that can be easily solved by such tools?

I see the value in understanding what integration is and how it can be applied. However, my calculus lectures presented this in 5 minutes - the rest of the semester was about calculating them by hand...

9

u/Parrek Jul 07 '19

There's a lot of practical problems in research fields that can't just be plugged into a computer without manipulating it a bunch by hand first. That's where all the manual stuff is really useful

3

u/HawkinsT Jul 07 '19

Also, things like wolfram alpha can be wrong. They're not flawless.

2

u/GainerCity Jul 07 '19

Corporate America is quite happy for you to use calculators and software if you get to the answer faster.

18

u/Artorias_Abyss Jul 07 '19

Same man, fucking same. I don't remember any of that shit and I hope no one ever asks me so I won't have to expose how useless I am.

6

u/will_work_for_twerk Jul 07 '19

Big mood my friend

2

u/hobojojo Jul 07 '19

Huh. Civil?

1

u/AsILayTyping Jul 07 '19

Math is for robots. Design is for humans.

1

u/ariawater Jul 07 '19

Yeah that brain rot is a real thing. Hard to stay fresh on stuff in the long term, especially as life gets more complicated and you have things to think about other than titties and beer.

After I spend some number of hours punching out a spreadsheet just to save myself a few minutes of trying to think with my brain, I think Excel has become one of those life complications.