PhDP

Quebec is 5th in the world in mathematics (according to PISA, right after Taiwan, Hong-Kong, Korea et Finland), and yet calculus is taught very late (and it's also optinal)... It's only my opinion, and I'm not an expert in science education, but it seems to me that classical physics should be taught in the same semester as calculus, and calculus should be taugh much sooner. After all, you only need 3 things to understand calculus; basic algebra, how to find a slope, and some basic notions about limits. Actually, it's the opposite here (at least, in math). We have a very influential math teacher (R. Lyons), he thinks that math is so slow, it's confusing for children, and I tend to agree with that.

About Chaos & Nonlinear systems; Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos: With Applications to Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Engineering by Steven Strogatz. A strong emphasis on intuitive understanding, nothing on formal proofs. It's an incredible book, I think every student with a least 2 courses in calculus should read it. Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems, Perko (new printing, 2008). If you're interested in nonlinear systems, it's probably the best book, but it's quite advanved. Ordinary differential equations and Dynamical Systems, by Gerald Teschl. Free online book, produced with LaTeX, so it's beautiful. I only read some sections of it, but so far it seems great, with a good deal of material about chaos. ...it's unrelated, but I have to recommend Partial Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers by Stanley J. Farlow. It's less than 15 bucks on amazon and it's a wonderful introduction to the world of PDEs (i.e.: heaven, or some might say hell...). It's made of about 50 small chapters (called Lessons), again with little emphasis on formal proofs.

... well for example, if I ask Java, or Mathematica, to find a square root. Are they using the Newton-Raphson ?

Such an elegant experiment, it's fascinating. I'll try it... and I really hate experiments. But this one is so simple, I might even get good results, and it's even possible that nobody will need hospitalization.

Well-known by who ? You know you're on a science forum here, not a religious one ? You should be able to present facts, studies. serious stuff. In short; more than just prejudices and "common sense".

...are computer using the Newton-Raphson method to evaluate square roots ?

It's an extrapolation, I never said that. But in the case of physics, I think much of classical physics doesn't make sense before calculus. Beside, they teach us F=ma just 1 year before they teach calculus, they could wait a little and teach it right...

What about 'not teaching classical physics before calculus' ?

...one of the problem with pit bulls is their tendency to attack without provocation. Anyway, some nations have banned pit bulls, so my question is, does it work ? Is there less people dying in France because of the ban ? Less children injured ? Is there a viable alternative to a total ban ?

Here's an interesting article about the biais of biology students against randomness (something we see here very often, thank you very much Dawkins); http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/6/1/pdf/10.1371_journal.pbio.0060003-S.pdf And the surprising part;

McCain had a lot of troubles with the Christian right not so long ago, he tried to make peace with them and this is what he gets. We should just all agree that, in the religiosphere, outrageous sermons are made by 'white' Christians, 'black' Christians, Muslims, Jews, et cetera... These so called "connections" are non-issues, let's talk about foreign policies, social issues & economy for a change. It seems quite obvious to me that Obama is not a racist, and McCain has little to do with the christian right.

Well, we're probably not talking about the same thing then. I learned "algebra-based" physics in high school, and by "algebra-based" what they meant was "diluted physics". So I had to learn the formula for the path of a projectile and all sorts of equations. IMO, this method can't lead to any real understanding of physics, and it's boring. Then at the university, I learned "calculus-based" physics, they taugh us how to use calculus to derive the basic equations we learned in "algebra-based" physics. As long as you have a good math intuition, it's much easier to do this kind of physics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA

First of all, 'Sako' is as crazy as you can get. Also, let's be clear, France is "reducing" it's nuclear arsenal for only two reasons; - Political... obviously. - Military; 1 nuclear weapon in 1970 was less effective than 1 nuclear weapon in 2000, not because of the nuclear weapon per se, but simply because it's now easier to strike from afar. What's the point of having 350 weapons, if you can now cover the same ground with less than 300 ? It looks like disarmament, but in truth, it's not.

They still teach algebra based physics at the university ? Anyway, once you understand calculus, it's much easier to understand "calculus based" physics, as you don't need to memorize many formula, you can derive them with a little logic.

...I would send all the other men to various missions in the galaxy.

It's funny. But there's "better".

I also really want to see this study...

I started a B.Sc in biology but switched to a B.Sc with 2/3 biology, 1/3 math, it was just getting absurd, in my classes; no maths, or very little. But then my knowledge of math was insufficient to understand the theory of evolution (which is largely based on theoretical population genetics), or behavioural & population ecology (...which is full of system of ODEs, for example to understand the dynamics of microbes or predators). If you try to read serious journals like American Naturalist, Nature, Science, Evolution, you're going to have problems with several articles unless you know some maths. And this is something unacceptable in my opinion; it's often easier for mathematicians or physicists to understand biology articles. You have huge problems with math ? IMO, you should think about biochemistry or social sciences. There are many people currently working on making biology a science with a strong theoretical/quantitative core.

It's perhaps the best thing to do, at least for now. However, one thing's certain; the U.S banking system enjoys too much freedom, it's less efficient and less stable than our system in Canada. And we will all pay the price for this lack of efficiency.

I'd say; mixed economy

I'm mostly working with ODEs, PDEs and dynamical systems.

The "god" particle... As far as I know, its existence is predicted by the standard model, but there's no actual proof of its existence.

I'm learning how to use MatLab & Maple. But I wonder if there is a really good, free alternative to these programs. What do you think of SciLab & GNU Octave (vs. MatLab) ? ...or Maxima (vs. Maple or Mathematica) ?

...a point I repeatedly tried to make, I even made a topic about it. It's yet another rethorical tactics used to attack someone's motivation instead of their logic.