Math branch on finding similarities to numbers.

[grayson]

11 12 54 69 72. 

those numbers have nothing to do with each other. But why did I put them on screen? I came up with an idea in my mind. What if we could take a random set of numbers, rearange them from lowest to highest. And find a sort of "Rate" at which they are changing. I am not speaking "Rate" In a literal sense. I just wonder if there could be a connection between those numbers. Idk why I though of this. I am going insane. But please help me with this

[wtf]

44 minutes ago, grayson said:

11 12 54 69 72. 

those numbers have nothing to do with each other. But why did I put them on screen? I came up with an idea in my mind. What if we could take a random set of numbers, rearange them from lowest to highest. And find a sort of "Rate" at which they are changing. I am not speaking "Rate" In a literal sense. I just wonder if there could be a connection between those numbers. Idk why I though of this. I am going insane. But please help me with this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_calculus

[grayson]

5 minutes ago, wtf said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_calculus

Calculus is the study of change, not similarity

Sometimes you get too CRAINIUS MAXIMUS

Oops, didn't study that part

Wait, I did. Hold on, I am asking for some continuous rate of change

Beetween each of the numbers. It need to come out as one number some how

Maybe average it?

Sorry

Thank you

[zapatos]

57 minutes ago, grayson said:

Calculus is the study of change, not similarity

Um, that is what you asked for...

57 minutes ago, grayson said:

I am asking for some continuous rate of change

 

[grayson]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

Um, that is what you asked for...

 

Yes, but in calculus, you are graphing a function. You can't just put in numbers and expect it to come out as a graph

[zapatos]

2 minutes ago, grayson said:

Yes, but in calculus, you are graphing a function. You can't just put in numbers and expect it to come out as a graph

You can't just pick a random set of numbers and expect to find a consistent 'rate of change'.

[grayson]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

You can't just pick a random set of numbers and expect to find a consistent 'rate of change'.

Yes, but we can find an average

[zapatos]

7 minutes ago, grayson said:

Yes, but we can find an average

So you opened this thread for help in calculating an average?

[wtf]

1 hour ago, grayson said:

Yes, but in calculus, you are graphing a function. You can't just put in numbers and expect it to come out as a graph

That's the point of the link I supplied. Calculus is the study of continuous change. Discrete calculus is the study of how individual discrete data points change. It's what you asked about. If you meant something else, perhaps you can be more clear.

Another thought is that you might mean the "continuous-ization" of discrete functions. For example the famous factorial function n! = 1 x 2 x 3 x ... n is only defined for positive integers. But we can extend it to the gamma function which is valid for arbitrary real and complex numbers and is continuous. 

Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?