# What field involves the most Calculus?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-field-involves-the-most-calculus/517920
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 17, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-field-involves-the-most-calculus/517920 "2009-11-17T15:11:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2009, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-field-involves-the-most-calculus/517920/21 "2009-11-18T02:42:02Z")
> [@Hampshire](#):
>
> Actuary?
I did quite a bit at university but have barely done any since.
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### Author:  [@The\_Bith\_Shuffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bith_Shuffle)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2009, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-field-involves-the-most-calculus/517920/22 "2009-11-18T04:58:05Z")
I went to the campus bookstore and it looks like every Electrical Engineering book is full of integrals. EE, maybe?
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### Author:  [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2009, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-field-involves-the-most-calculus/517920/23 "2009-11-18T05:40:47Z")
Dentistry.
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### Author:  [@The\_Bith\_Shuffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bith_Shuffle)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2009, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-field-involves-the-most-calculus/517920/24 "2009-11-18T05:52:05Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#):
>
> Dentistry.
Hahaha?
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### Author:  [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2009, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-field-involves-the-most-calculus/517920/25 "2009-11-18T05:54:08Z")
the most practical part of calculus it isn’t in integrals and derivatives but rather manipulating them in differential equations to model things.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2009, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-field-involves-the-most-calculus/517920/26 "2009-11-18T06:01:26Z")
> [@Jragon](#):
>
> I believe the correct question was: over -infinity to infinity; integrate x[sup]x[/sup].
>
> ETA: Or does that violate the rule against wishing death on other posters?
Well, it violates conventions (of etiquette, let’s say) about contexts in which x[sup]x[/sup] ought be taken to be uniquely defined. But at any rate, even limiting ourselves to positive numbers, this (definite) integral clearly goes off to infinity rather than converging.
(Of course, you really meant to ask about the indefinite integral instead. To which the answer is simply “It’s the antiderivative of x[sup]x[/sup]”. If pressed further, one might admit that one lacks a better way of expressing the answer, or perhaps even prove that it can’t be expressed in some particular format or another, but no matter… until someone settled on names like “sine”, “logarithm”, and so on, those functions lacked nice names too, but no one considers them any the worse for it now.)
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### Author:  [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2009, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-field-involves-the-most-calculus/517920/27 "2009-11-18T12:05:28Z")
> [@The\_Bith\_Shuffle](#):
>
> Hahaha?
[Hahaha.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_%28dental%29)
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### Author:  [@The\_Bith\_Shuffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bith_Shuffle)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2009, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-field-involves-the-most-calculus/517920/28 "2009-11-18T13:17:29Z")
> [@Ace309](#):
>
> [Hahaha.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_%28dental%29)
Just for the record, I did know what calculus was in this sense. The dentists have found lots of it in my mouth, you see… =(
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2009, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-field-involves-the-most-calculus/517920/29 "2009-11-18T13:39:57Z")
> [@Jragon](#):
>
> I believe the correct question was: over -infinity to infinity; integrate x[sup]x[/sup].
>
> ETA: Or does that violate the rule against wishing death on other posters?
That’s easy: it’s the antiderivative of f(x)=x[sup]x[/sup]. 😃
ETA: Or what **Indistinguishable** said. 🙂
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