Thursday, February 1, 2007

If only I had knew this in high school, I could have gotten out of calculus using a religious exemption...

I knew L. Ron Hubbard, the father of Scientology, was a little kooky, but I had no idea he had such views on calculus:

Now I hope you understand this, because I've never been able to make head nor tail of it. It must be some sort of a Black Magic operation, started out by the Luce cult -- some immoral people who are operating up in New York City, Rockefeller Plaza -- been thoroughly condemned by the whole society. Anyway, their rate-of-change theory -- I've never seen any use for that mathematics, by the way -- I love that mathematics, because it -- I asked an engineer, one time, who was in his 6th year of engineering, if he'd ever used Calculus, and he told me yeah, once, once I did, he said. When did you use it? And he said I used it once. Let me see, what did you use it on? Oh yeah. Something on the rate-of-change of steam particles in boilers. And then we went out and tested it and found the answer was wrong.
I'm now waiting for Tom Cruise to start a public outcry against NASA because of their reliance on calculus and other "bad" mathematics principles to launch vehicles into space.

I guess this is what you say when you try and make excuses about your shortcomings in science and math:
From 1930 to 1932 he attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Although Hubbard would later claim advanced degrees in the sciences and in civil engineering, his first year grade average was a D (below average). His second and final year was no better; he received a D in calculus and electrical and magnetic physics, and an F (failing) for molecular and atomic physics. He had no further formal education.
Alright. Enough bashing for one day.

Personally, I think I use calculus everyday, although a computer calculates the area under the curve for me. I'm not sure I even remember how to do this stuff on my own with paper and pencil anymore.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope the title is referenceing the bad grammar in the quote from Hubbard, because it is downright ugly.

Swany said...

Yeah, I'd like to say that my error was purposeful, but truth is, I haven't been proofreading my work very well this week. I've been pretty sick, coughing up my lung, and feeling lightheaded.

I'm just surprised Scooty didn't catch it first. Next thing you know, Fandango is going to be giving me scoldings about my grammar.

Dutch said...

Hey, I don't dig on all of them. I let some go simply because I don't want to drive you guys crazy.