Comments on: Physicality of a basic Calculator

By: Recent Additions « Association of Smith College Alum Blogs

Recent Additions « Association of Smith College Alum Blogs — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:01:39 +0000

[...] everything from proofs to the logic behind “sufficient evidence.” In her most recent post, she argues against the idea that all math should be done in a computer program. Basic math, she [...]

By: samus

samus — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:24:42 +0000

Yes, I have definitely opened up Mathematica to get the square root of something when no physical calculator was within reach. (how embarrassing right?) Regardless, I was talking to a friend of mine who mentioned she would prefer a graphing calculator to a basic one because then she could see her previous work. She also mentioned adding machines to see the tape.

Another interesting thing is most people can’t do arithmetic in their heads. Especially the math-phobic ones. So making arithmetic non-threatening to the non-mathematicians is, as the mathematicians would say, a non-trivial task.

By: Mgccl

Mgccl — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:13:31 +0000

I use mathematica to do all my calculations. That’s because a computer usually is always around me.
Extreme scene most likely not going to happen at all:
1. In school, during physics, need to calculate 24*23.
2. Walk to the school library 100 meters away
3. hack into school system and grant me permissions to download and use some sockets.
4. Download Putty and SSH into my mathematica server.
5. Enter equations and see the result.
6. While at it, factorize some girl’s phone number.

You are clearly right, having a calculator in my reach would reduce step 1-5 into nothing.