Home Page - 2002-03-24

Post date: Nov 29, 2008 3:9:21 AM

Volume of Sphere & Calculus [Read this article]

...We will try to find its Volume in a pristine way, in an attempt to recapture the original impetus that drove mathematicians and laymen alike, to discover the nexus between Discrete and Continuous, Finite and Infinite. And, eventually, Newton's genius crystallized all these efforts into a supreme mechanism, called Calculus...

...Once a tortoise challenged Achilles (a then famous Greek runner and Olympic champion), that he cannot beat it in a running race! All it requested for is a meter of handicap for him (i.e. It'll start a meter ahead of him in the race). The reasoning was, if he has the one-meter handicap, and if they start the race at the same time, then in the time that Achilles takes to cover that distance of one meter, the tortoise would have covered some distance (however small it may be). And, arguing in the same way, while Achilles cover this gap, it would have gone some more distance! And so on... Hence Achilles can never overtake the tortoise, as it will always be ahead due to his handicap!...

...First I must frankly accept, that I've always been uncomfortable while trying to give an example for OO's usefulness. In the same vein, I've always also been very thrilled while trying to break a scenario into OO before coding. It is not the hype at all that made me like OO, because I started loving it only when I faced a wall with VB 4.0, and C++(when used as C). I hope you will take my words, when I say that 'I stated using OOP, only when I saw it working for me'. Of course, I say this only to imply that, as much as it is hard to give an example to OO's superiority, it is equally hard to give a truly deploring example of OO's subordination by Procedural languages. The author of the site, understandably rejects all one point OO solutions, as, too specific to conclude that OO is great enough. I feel, with the same token, all the counter-examples given in the site too are too specific to debase the whole OO movement as such...