How is math used when your an mechanical engineer?

Answer 1

All the time. Mostly calculus or differential equations. In most of the questions I'm given, I know an initial condition or a boundary condition, or both. If you don't know or haven't learned yet, an initial condition is a property given to something at a certain time, and a boundary condition is a property given to a certain location.

A good example is heat transfer, where I may know the surface temperature at time t=0 and some rate of heat being transferred to a body from location x=L. I am given a few heat transfer equations and have to chose which I need to use in this situation. When I chose and set up my formula, I apply the boundary and initial conditions, and I can then solve for the temperature 10 seconds later, or maybe at the other end of the heated body.

When I took control theory we used a lot of linear algebra, but we still had to apply the initial and boundary conditions to find the answer at the time we wanted. The equation was different, but we still used differential equations to get our answer.

Other than that, I use algebra everyday but I use some of the same formulas and processes so much that I don't even think about it. I also use calculus a good amount of times, but it's not that bad. You will also learn a few new topics in math, but it's usually just to enable you to get to the point where you can finally solve for or plug it into a differential equation.

Make sure you pay attention in your differential equations class!