<p>i'm planning to major in computer science (not EECS) so math 53 is not required for me. does it help with any future cs classes? or should i just not take it?</p>
<p>Math 53 is multivariable calculus. It is highly unlikely you will ever use multivariable calculus, unless your software somehow has something to do with physics.</p>
<p>I feel like multivariable calculus may be useful in things like 3D computer graphics. I’d just highly recommend taking math 53 even if you don’t need it, because it’s a fantastic class.</p>
<p>Advanced Economical software also uses multi-variable calculus. Essentially any topic that contains multivariate functions that you end up integrating or deriving may use multi-variable calculus. Also I’m assuming vector calculus has big applications in physics software and 3D graphics as singh pointed out.</p>
<p>^I would like to add that these are very niche and specialized uses of multivariable calculus.</p>
<p>Obviously, software that deals with physics, economics, and mathematics, is going to deal with multivariable.</p>
<p>You should also consider how well you did in single variable calculus. Typically, it is a big conceptual transition from single-variable to multi-variable (especially for integration), which can make the class difficult.</p>
<p>It is unlikely that you will use them for cs classes but you will certainly benefit from learning it. It’s considered fundamental knowledge to science and engineering majors.</p>
<p>It’s not really a big transition. Multivariable calculus is just generalization of single-variable calculus and you will find the ideas are quite natural. As always, have a great look of the material and see whether you are comfortable with it.</p>
<p>strongly recommend you to take it. you will probably find it useful one day. (just like many math classes…)</p>
<p>I disagree that it’s not a big transition.</p>
<p>Surface integrals, line integrals, and Green/Gauss/Stokes Theorem are conceptually very different from single-variable calculus, where you could easily graph everything and visualize it.</p>
<p>The only “easy” part of multivariable is partial differentiation and multiple integration (because these are just basically single-variable differentiation/integration applied multiple times).</p>
<p>it depends largely on your ability.</p>
<p>Firstly, the concepts are indeed not included in single-variable calculus for obvious reasons. But you should know that they have many physics intepreations and you can indeed draw some graphs to understand these concepts. ‘Edwards and Penney’ has such kind of thing. </p>
<p>I don’t know whether you understand or not. Surface integrals and line integrals are just under different measure but you can always parametrize the space in this course. You don’t even need to use simple measure functions to approximate the integrals. </p>
<p>For Greens/Gauss/Stokes, they appear frequently in physics and and if you can understand heat flow that kind of stuff, they should be pieces of cake. All in all, you just neeed to know the formulas and how to apply them.</p>