Random: Calculus?

Remember this earlier post, waaay back in October, that went something like this? --


"So you hated society and decided to take math?"

"No, I just don't give a damn about anything more arbitrary than solid numbers."

"But aren't variables 'arbitrary'? I mean, that's why they're called variables, right? They vary? Especially in stuff like implicit differentiation?"

"No, I know that, but--"

"And you know math's a human thing, right? Humanity? Society? Ants don't do math--at least not that I know of, and--"


And then Lusine commented this--


Also, I got a mental image of tiny ants with thick glasses solving differential equations. That was funnier than I thought it'd be.


I was going through biology just now and came across this:

Foraging trips of ants and bees often wind and loop about in a circuitous route, but once a forager has found food, the return trip is relatively direct. One investigator suggests that the continuous series of calculations necessary to figure the angles, directions, distance, and speed of the trip and convert it into direct returns could involve a stopwatch, compass, and integral vector calculus. How an insect does this is unknown.


...the ants...they are smarter than we know....
Insects dominate the world. Oh yes.