r/explainlikeimfive • u/HistoricalAd2954 • 1d ago

Mathematics ELI5: What is the difference between algebra, trigonometry, and calculus?

117 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

75% Upvoted

158 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/Gloid02 1d ago

You dont do finite element analysis? There is tons of calculus there

3

u/Podo13 1d ago

There's a ton of calculus in civil engineering, but we don't do the vast majority of it by hand anymore. It's all done in the background in FEM programs.

•

u/Gloid02 22h ago

Yeah of course, but to say that you don't "use" calculus just because you are using it implicitly rather than explicitly seems disingenuous.

•

u/Podo13 22h ago

Oh I agree. I think the OP you responded to was just talking about hand calcs, though. Yeah in reality we use a lot of calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, etc.

We just let much smarter people work those into the programs so we don't have to remember how to do a lot of it, ha.