I'm studying for an exam on information modelling. This basically means I'm learning relational calculus. So far I've learned that I really hate calculus. Anyone who does this shit for fun is a freakdefinitely wired differently to me: Summation by parts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I mean look at that stuff. It's line noise! Maths geeks are crazy! :)

What's interesting is that I can often jump right to actual code, but have a lot of trouble writing out the formal theory or pseudocode. To some extent I seem to sub in brute force logic for elegant mathematical proofs and cross-checks.

I tried to explain this to my mum once. She has a maths degree and was telling me how she found parabolic acceleration mathematics fascinating. I can understand the concept no trouble: a ball rolling down a 45° slope will take longer to reach the end than a ball rolling along a curved path to the same end point, even though the curved path is longer. I'm pretty sure I worked out the theory on my own: the curved path lets the ball accelerate to a higher speed, so it reaches the end faster despite the longer distance.

I get the concept. But make me do the maths, run the actual numbers... it's bad. I have a lot of trouble making the numbers work. I also get very bored. In high school I actually had occasions where I knew the correct answer but couldn't get the equations to work.

But anyway, that won't help on the exam, so back to the books I go...

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