[msandford]

When I hear someone say "We don't need calculus!"

I think:

Okay, then go back to pre-calculus times and somehow still invent the modern world without it and then get back to me on how irrelevant it is.

Also, you don't get to wear this shirt: http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=...

My feeling is that it would take a few hundred years extra (or maybe more!) to get to the point where you had a computer without calculus. Might even take a thousand. You'd only be able to do discrete stuff, so while Babbage's difference engine might be up for grabs (and mechanical calculators definitely would be) things like the Norden bomb sight or naval firing computers wouldn't be, since they're continuous not discrete systems.

You might not EVER get to computers because things like Nyquist's theorem and stuff like that doesn't even exist in a discrete-only world. Things just sometimes work and sometimes don't and it's sorta related to the frequency, but how is unclear. Aliasing is just something that randomly bites you in the ass and there's no way to develop a rigorous understanding of it and to engineer yourself out of the morass.

I would not volunteer for that mission. I like the modern world.