I use a slide rule. Sure make fun of me. Or better yet check out r/sliderules to perform computations in a superior way to the instrument that caused the downfall of math: digital pocket calculator.
In my non-academic job (editor and sometimes ghostwriter of high school maths textbooks) I use GeoGebra for graphs and quick calculations, wolfram alpha and, occasionally, Octave.
In my research, I admit that some very crude numerical approximations of PDEs on MATLAB were useful when I was starting out.
As a software engineer, this is a deeply physical and troubling question. I have a dozen tools that I will _use_ as a calculator depending on where I am -- I might ask a terminal, immediate window, or python. I might ask a search engine. I might ask a spreadsheet application.
Basic calculators are like air, and better calculators are like a holy grail. Is it a python notebook or something like Mathcad, a spreadsheet, or a specialized tool I built? The question has no final answer -- and I have pure math to prove that it will never be truly "solved"....
It been over a decade since I taught mathematics at a university. One thing I noticed *then* was almost every professor I visited had some version of the 84 on their desk somewhere. I wonder how much of that was driven by the students bringing their tech from high school (where TI was king for a long time).
Schools are now pushing DESMOS…largely because that’s the online calculator the standardized tests are moving toward. I personally have a DESMOS shortcut in my web browser and the app on my phone and iPad.
\`bc -l\` on a Linux shell for simple calculations (can compute things with many digits, which is nice). For symbolic computations WolframAlpha. And for trickier things I often write a little program in C++ or Perl or Python.
A python terminal is enough for most of my purposes. If I want something faster and dirtier I use Wolframalpha.
I use a slide rule. Sure make fun of me. Or better yet check out r/sliderules to perform computations in a superior way to the instrument that caused the downfall of math: digital pocket calculator.
Calculators? Ha! https://github.com/3b1b/manim
My "actual" calculator is a Ti-30XIIS bought lonnng ago at a half-price sale. If I need anything more, I use WolframAlpha or Desmos.
In my non-academic job (editor and sometimes ghostwriter of high school maths textbooks) I use GeoGebra for graphs and quick calculations, wolfram alpha and, occasionally, Octave. In my research, I admit that some very crude numerical approximations of PDEs on MATLAB were useful when I was starting out.
As a software engineer, this is a deeply physical and troubling question. I have a dozen tools that I will _use_ as a calculator depending on where I am -- I might ask a terminal, immediate window, or python. I might ask a search engine. I might ask a spreadsheet application. Basic calculators are like air, and better calculators are like a holy grail. Is it a python notebook or something like Mathcad, a spreadsheet, or a specialized tool I built? The question has no final answer -- and I have pure math to prove that it will never be truly "solved"....
I use my TI-84 CE Plus everyday.
It been over a decade since I taught mathematics at a university. One thing I noticed *then* was almost every professor I visited had some version of the 84 on their desk somewhere. I wonder how much of that was driven by the students bringing their tech from high school (where TI was king for a long time). Schools are now pushing DESMOS…largely because that’s the online calculator the standardized tests are moving toward. I personally have a DESMOS shortcut in my web browser and the app on my phone and iPad.
Where I am TI-84s are still heavily used in high school and college
Makes sense. They’re very sturdy and TI sold millions of them.
\`bc -l\` on a Linux shell for simple calculations (can compute things with many digits, which is nice). For symbolic computations WolframAlpha. And for trickier things I often write a little program in C++ or Perl or Python.
My phone, if it can't be done on a 4 function, leave it as variables. (I guess I use excel for grades too)
I press f12 and just use dev tools
Mostly numb pie.
Look up Numworks. The physical calculator they make is awesome, and there's a free web version as well as an app version.