High School these days...

I wouldn't worry - my degree is in biochemistry. I never actually did it for a living.

Intersection of two cylinders - no, we did not do that specifically either.

Projecting an ellipse onto the side of the other cylinder seems like a start.

Same for me, in my case electronics. But then it was the nearest thing to CS in my day!

These day, leave school and do the BTEC Extended Diploma. Excellent content (if you do the maths unit you even get matrices!) and a good chance of getting an AAA equivalent.

As far as I can recollect JMB maths O-level definitely included some calculus in 1983 - it didn't include matrices.

SteveW

Yes. I took Maths O-level a year early (1961) and took Additional Maths the following year (1962) (along with a lot of other pupils). One of the things we did that year was calculus.

Nothing was available below post-grad in my day, so I did it after a physics degree.

I am sure I did calculus in my O level maths.

Whether or not it's a chaotic system depends on the breeding rate of the bugs. You don't normally get them in bacterial populations, where reproduction is constant; they're quite common in avian and mammalian populations with a breeding season. I suspect you didn't sample frequently enough in your simulation.

It's AGES since I had to know that!

Andy

periodicity is not the issue: time delay is.

If you have a system with two negative feedback paths with different lags you get chaotic fluctuations IIRC.

s/physics/biology/

Mind, my son did CompSci, and is now working in the business. I'm pleased though that I advised him to do maths for A level... he said it was a good move, Bob can tell you if it was.

Andy

It makes life easier, but A level maths is so variable these days that we just ask for GCSE maths at a reasonable level (>= C). We do the rest ourselves.

Maybe a case of whatever comes to hand...

We did earth worms, mice, frogs, and bulls-eyes for O-level, and watched the teacher do a pig's head, having first cut through it vertically with a bandsaw in the woodwork building. About half way through, some bit slid out and landed with a plop on the bench as he held it up for people at the back to see. This was followed by a loud crash from the back. We all turned around to see the class bully had fainted and was out for the count on the stone floor of the biology lab. I'll bet everyone in the class still remembers that to this day.

I don't recall any practical in the O-level biology exam though; it was only in the classwork (which didn't count towards your exam grade in my day).

I recall seeing larger things being chopped up for A-level, but I didn't do A-level biology (you could only do 3 A-levels in my day).

We could do 4 A-levels but one of them had to be General Studies.

OTOH, I learned FORTRAN in the Fifth Form.

Especially as you lined up to give him a kicking?

Blimey, General Studies doesn't count. I did Use of English and General Studies at 'A' Level as well as the real ones; Biology, Chemistry, Pure Maths and Applied Maths.

We had to do General Studies in the 6th form as well, but not the A-level - I think it was an AO-level (Alternative O-level, IIRC), which was taken at the end of the lower-sixth. You could go on to do the A-level as well, but then that was one of your 3 A-levels.

It was a matter of time-tabling - you picked an A-level from each of 3 columns, and the subjects in each column were taught at the same time. There were 4 columns, but the other one was your private study time to do the out-of-class work, of which we were given a lot (significantly more than fitted into the private study periods, as it formed your homework too). A few people did

The top stream at Hampton Grammar school took O-level maths in the January of the fourth year (1968 in my case), followed by additional maths in June along with other subjects. I may have hated the school (and vice versa) but Frank Steffens was one amazingly good teacher - for the January exam the results for our class were 28 x A, 4 x B and

In the sixth form he took us for general studies or some such non- examined class that was meant to broaden our outlook. It was a source of some amazement to us that someone so ancient could understand Dolby stereo (the latest technology of the time) and explain it to us. It's galling to realise that I am now similarly ancient!

For A-levels I was in the group that took maths (pure + applied combined paper), physics and chemistry. Another seriously good teacher, Alan Waltham, picked four of us out as having some aptitude and we took maths as two separate A-levels, with him giving us extra tuition. Lots of calculus, but no sets, matrices or 'modern' stuff.