<p>Hi guys, I'm starting my sophomore year of chemical engineering at purdue. This past year I got a B in calcuus 1, and an A in calculus 2. Now, it's around 6 weeks from the start of the next semester, and I want to review my calculus 2 material. </p>
<p>The question is, how much is really needed for future calc and engineering courses? I learned the following chapters:</p>
<p><em>**Applications of integration
volumes, areas, average value
*</em><em>Techniques of Integration
partial fractions, trig substitution, trig integrals, integration by parts, improper integrals, etc
*</em><em>Further integration applications
arc length, area of surface of revolution, moments¢er of mass
*</em><em>Parametric equations and polar coordinates
*</em>*Infinite Sequences and Series</p>
<p>I keep thinking that the only things worth reviewing and knowing very well are techniques of integration, and sequences/series. Am I right?</p>
<p>No thats not what I mean.. I meant from my calculus 2 course, is it alright to just know the fundamentals really well? Like, how to integrate, and how to solve series/sequences? or do I have to know everything that I learned for future courses?</p>
<p>^^ that's interesting.. I've been reading thse forums for like 2 years and I've read that chemical engineering is very math/physics intensive, with little chemistry (aside from pchem & orgo). </p>
<p>I'm just asking, is it very useful to know everythng I learned or just fundamentals? basics? I can integrate and solve series/sequences very well but I am lacking in other areas, only because I feel I don't need them. I'm asking if I DO need them.</p>
<p>I think techniques of integration will be important, but I don't see how series/sequences will be used. We never really talked about applications of series and sequences.</p>
<p>I'll be doing vector calculus next term and differential equations the term after. Knowing how to integrate quickly will be helpful for these courses (after all, these are calculus courses...)</p>
<p>Differential equations will probably play a role in heat & mass transfer as well as thermodynamics.</p>
<p>Sorry to hijack this thread, but is the Haber process a general example of what a chemical engineer does? If so, I fail to see the application of physics and high level calculus.</p>
<p>thermodynamics (differentials), fluid mechanics (diffy q), reaction kinetics (diffy q), process control (Laplace)...there's a lot of calculus, but relatively simple compared to what a math/physics major would know</p>
<p>Thanks for that list. Laplace seems like higher level calculus as that's electrical engineering stuff. Am I right?</p>
<p>What is the physics involved though? Is it more than AP Physics C level? The only thing I see there that's not in that class is fluid mechanics, while the other things are covered in chemistry courses.</p>
<p>process control uses a lot of laplace transforms, which is just basic diffy q, although EE would def use more of this.</p>
<p>all of the courses i listed above aren't covered in general physics and chem classes. the courses above are standard courses in cheme that you'll find in every ABET accedited university. of course, general science classes may touch upon thermo and reaction kinetics but not with the cheme emphasis.</p>
<p>also, i would say that the ap physics c curriculum will give you all of the theoretical knowledge you need to know for physics-related cheme topics (at the undergrad level). </p>
<p>the level of theory you need to learn as an engineer is very low. for example, in fluid mechanics, u can derive the parabolic velocity profile for laminar, newtonian flow solely using F=ma as your theoretical basis. you can predict pressure drop, flow velocity, reynolds number, etc from F=ma. in fact, the general navier stokes eq is simply an expression of F=ma.</p>
<p>so i guess i'm trying to illustrate that fundamentally, the physics isn't beyond that of ap physics c, but the math can get complicated when deriving application-specific equations from fundamental laws.</p>