How to Make it Through Calculus (Neil deGrasse Tyson)

through it I have a I have a I don't quite call it elevated to the level of a parable but it's a story in my life that I reference all the time right now share it with you as short I'm in high school I'm junior in high school and I want to take calculus now if you didn't know calculus is way different way more different from algebra then algebra is from arithmetic okay so whatever took you to get from arithmetic to algebra what X what number is it what could be any number how could it be any number it's in the quay it's got to be a number these these are the transition from arithmetic to algebra the transition from algebra to calculus is more okay so that's why it's generally not taught in high school you it's a college thing and even then you wouldn't necessarily have it so I'm handed the calculus book and I opened a page in the front cover and there these equations and they using squiggly lines I had never seen before half the Greek alphabet is in there I said I don't know what this is oh and I said I will never learn this that's what I said that's why I felt I said this but I need to know this because the universe is speaking this language I'm screaming at you sorry the level sound levels okay sorry okay you're excited this is great this is you started this yes all right so I said all right one step at a time after the first week of class I took a peek still nothing after three weeks and a month open up the side of the book is it hey I know that equation I used that the other day that's good I like that and as the week's went on it was as though this fog began to dissipate it didn't lift because that implies you now you see a night you don't and now you do it just dissipated it became more and more transparent and by month three month for every one of these quite equations became my friends hmm I said I want them if that give me more and that is my measure of what I need to do if I encounter something which in that moment I do not understand is that any worse than you coming upon a book of Mandarin and you don't know any Chinese characters yeah I don't know any of this yeah except one and a half billion people in the world speak it so it's it can't be impossible to learn so you put in the time and slowly some of the characters Ravel that means a human or that's a home or that's a food and all of a sudden the characters start making sense it's not really any different from that and too many people think that they got to know something instantly in order to ever be good at it rather than want to achieve something realize there are these hurdles work at it and every bit of yourself you invest helps to dissipate that fog mm-hmm and the more badly you want to get there the more you will work to dissipate that fog mmm and that's what happened to me and I've invoked that ever since yeah and Brandon the love with that - yeah badly want to get there and the lawyer got it out of it otherwise what's gonna keep you going yeah and don't hesitate to ask for help oh oh I've been telling my mother okay I've tutored people in my life in physics and in math I've been tutored

Channel: Jonathan Arrington

Views: 1,566,860

Keywords: calculus, neil degrasse tyson, astrophysics, physics, math, science, grit

Id: NjvwWiCYLl4

Length: 3min 38sec (218 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 08 2020