21 Calculus considered evil: Discrete physics
21.1 Continuum versus discrete physics
The Preface mentioned that the reader does not need to know calculus for the material presented here. Calculus is being avoided for a reason other than ease of reading: Calculus and computers make for strange bedfellows, and their combination can destroy the validity of results. Calculus deals with infinitesimal quantities; computers do not calculate with infinitesimals. Some calculus appears in this chapter, but only to contrast it with approaches that are much easier to understand, and which offer the promise of provably correct, bounded calculations for ...
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