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Hp rpn scientific calculator5/17/2023 Synthesis and creative use of one's knowledge, is, after all, what real world science and engineering are all about. But it is easier to construct a system in which students are tested on rote memory and simple application of known template examples from class, rather than being able to use all the resources at their disposal to synthesize everything they have learned in creative applications. No literature professor would make a student write a term paper on Shakespeare without having access to the original plays and all the additional supplemental information he can lay his hands on. When you think about the situation, it is fairly ludicrous. I admit calculators have become reasonably sophisticated as of late, and so as a result, partially to offset any potential unfair advantage, instructors are increasingly allowing students to stuff all of the equations they can fit onto a "cheat sheet" of a certain size. Calculators are the one concession they do allow, only because their functionality is limited, and therefore the aid they provide is also limited. Therefore, they must almost always artificially control additional information and calculating aids during exams (normally no notes, books, or computers). So what use are calculators in schools when students could be using Mathematica (or any other mathematical software of their choice) on their laptops? The plain fact of the matter is that math and science instructors almost universally do not wish to construct a course in which the learning goes beyond the simplest applications of the principles learned. You'll find that all good scientists and engineers can do quick back-of-the-envelope calculations when the need arises. If I am in a meeting of some kind or just informally speaking to someone, and the need for a quick numerical estimate comes up, I can always whip out an estimate good to within 10% without using any calculating aid other than a pencil and paper. And that is saying nothing of the fact that a full-sized keyboard is vastly easier to use than _either_ a stylus or a weeny calculator keypad. (Not a practical example, given that 100 decades is greater than the total number of fundamental particles in the current Hubble radius, but an illustrative one nonetheless.) In addition, I have the ability to immediately translate those expressions into Tex format or C or Fortran code, so that they can be readily incorporated into papers or other standalone code. (Try to stuff than in your calculator and smoke it.) It also has unlimited numerical precision, so if I want the value of Pi to 100 digits, I just enter "N ". Mathematica has an enormous understanding of mathematical functions, so if I want, say, the value of second derivative of the Laguerre polynomial of order n, I can simply enter "N, x] ]". It is far more convenient and _more powerful_ than using a hand calculator since I can readily construct expressions, do symbolic manipulations on them, and produce complex plots with very little effort. I have hundreds of physical constants relevant for my work stored in a handy ".m" file, so if I wish to compute, say, the Planck mass, I can simply type in "Sqrt ", rather than punching in numerical values. If I find the need to do a detailed numerical computation while working, I simply pop up Mathematica. I agree that calculators are still useful for educational settings, although for a different reason that the one you suggest.Īs a computational astrophysicist, I no longer find any use for hand-held calculators whatsoever.
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