Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Cheap Second Calculators For Tests?
Rich0 writes "I own an HP 48 calculator that I'm quite content with, but soon I'll need to take a certification exam where this calculator will not be welcome. I'm sure this is a common problem for those who own higher-end calculators. Sure, I could just buy a random $15 calculator with a few trig functions, but I was wondering who makes the best moderately-priced calculators for somebody who already has and appreciates a programmable calculator and just needs something simple. Bonus points if the calculator can handle polar vector arithmetic and unit conversions, but it has to be simple enough that virtually any exam would accept its use."
I believe the TI-36X Pro would probably do what you are looking for. It is approved for use on Professional Engineer tests, from what I have read.
I have a TI-36X Pro for basically the same reasons you outlined. It's quite affordable too, and if you're in the US (I'm not) then it is really easy to find.
Check out the NCEES Calculator Policy.
I had a non-programmable calculator in college but it died and I didn't need a calculator at work. I bought a TI-30Xa for when I took the state professional engineering exam. I am still using this calculator as an engineering professor. Plenty of capability.
I would suggest the HP-11C. It's available on ebay, and is not $15 cheap, but it is an RPN programmable scientific, of less complexity than the HP-48. I am an RPN fan, so I would go the extra mile to get an RPN calculator.
step 1: buy a retarded large button lcd calculator with w huge screen and fixed digits (you know, 0-9, ., +, *, /, -)
step 2: replace the buttons with joysticks
step 3: replace the screen with something around 300dpi
step 4: put in an arm processor and bring up linux
step 5: add wireless networking
step 6: swap out the aa batteries with lithium
step 7: develop a chorded keyboard input on the now 9 position keys
step 8: write an emulator to pretend to be the original calculator
step 9: profit
Because the programmable calculators can do more than just math.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I come across TI-35's and such at thrift stores for a few bucks. You aren't going to uses it again much so just re-donate when you are done with it.
I have a Casio FX991ES, it has a nice display, can do unit conversion, polar arithmetic and is cheap.
It's pretty common in Australia. It has a different model number in every country.
For High School and early College degrees, knowing the basics helps later work when working with the more advanced tools. After learning (and being able to know) the basics then move into the more advanced tools. Both are needed. Generally when working on complex systems it's easiest to understand when it can be broken down into clear, demarcated segments. Overall it's complex but each individual segment is made up of basic understandable ideas. That way you don't need to look at everything all at once. This is the way much of networking works using the ISO reference model. Knowing the basics helps when you need to fall back
Neil Cherry - Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
Always used them for 15 years. Lost one long time ago, bought the same again (current model).
sharp el-531w
Fuck doing math by hand, thats what computers are for!
I mean seriously, lets give everyone a TI-89 and teach them to use it!
Even better, make students learn a legitimate math software, like MathCAD or Maple or something
Why hold ourselves back?
Using calculator to aid us resolve math problems faster by itself is not a problem
The problem being ...
... too many young uns (and the not-so-young uns) relying too much on the calculators because they do NOT have _any_ solid math foundation
Those who have solid math foundation, even with using high-end calculators would have the capability to sense if the answer is correct by instinct, for there is always the possibility of inputting the formula wrongly in the first place
Unfortunately, for those without solid math background, they will take _any_ answer appears on the screen, as they neither possess the solid math instinct, nor the knowledge if they have keyed in the right formula or not, in the first place
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
For "polar vector arithmetic and unit conversions," you will want a calculator with the following four keys: "+", "-", "x", "/".
If you're a complete math wuss, you can indulge yourself with square root, sine, and cosine buttons, too.
If you need much more than that for your listed items, then you shouldn't be worrying about a calculator. You should be learning the fucking material so you have the tiniest bit of understanding about what you're doing.
Yeah! And while you're at it, chuck the electronic doo-dads, man-up, and get a slide rule.
Real math gods get by with an abacus. Make sure it has more than 6 beads per string so you can do hexadecimal.
I like calculators and picked one of these up for a spare. For a non-graphing, non-programmable, scientific calculator, it is pretty good. Input and output display are independent so you can use natural input and have decimal output. It is easy to use overall. Mine has no persistent state so if it times out and turns off it comes back cleared. These are neat calculators and very inexpensive.
Clickety Click
You gotta go with my #1, the TI-36x Solar. It's ACT and SAT allowed so if anyone has a problem with it, they're making it up.
For High School and early College degrees, knowing the basics helps later work when working with the more advanced tools. After learning (and being able to know) the basics then move into the more advanced tools. Both are needed. Generally when working on complex systems it's easiest to understand when it can be broken down into clear, demarcated segments. Overall it's complex but each individual segment is made up of basic understandable ideas. That way you don't need to look at everything all at once. This is the way much of networking works using the ISO reference model. Knowing the basics helps when you need to fall back
It's the difference between knowledge and understanding. Our society often fails to value the latter, since it is not immediately useful in the short-term and requires a wise long-view to appreciate. This is very much to our collective detriment.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Because somebody has to know how to build the calculator in the first place or you'll just end up kidnapping other people's children.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I'm a big fan of the Casio fx-300 series. These days I'm using the fx-300MS, purchased at Staples, etc., for $10. http://www.staples.com/Casio-FX-300MS-Plus-Scientific-Calculator/product_403857 It's fine for scientific and engineering calculations, and although I'd prefer a programmable calculator, those aren't allowed for exams, and therefore aren't widely sold in stores. I have enough of the fx-300s around so there's always one at hand wherever I am, at home, at work, or at the bench. They must also be good enough for my scientific friends as well, because often when I'm in someone else's lab I see one lying around, and think I forgot and left my own there, only to discover, no, it's not mine.
The official list is here.
Made the best calculator.
There is a jerk just like you at my job. I'll ask coworkers for their opinion on a particular tool, and he has to but in and say, "You can just Google for the tool and find hundreds of them for sale." I don't ask my coworkers because I need a list of names, I ask them because I want their opinion, and usually specific to the type of work we do. Part of "growth" is just not knowing what is the most popular choice, but knowing the criteria people use when selecting a tool. And just like that jerk coworker, guys like you will complain how such requests for opinion and discussion waste your time by making you do other people's work for them, yet you have no problem spending way more time whining about wasting time than you would with actually moving on and doing whatever makes your time so important.
You want people to speak up, and not sugar coat things for the purpose of "inoffensiveness"? Well, the did, by down modding such garbage. You want to value honest expression over phony appearance, yet bitch when it turns out people disagree with you.
HP-35s. Not as good as the original HP-35 u some respects, but plenty usable:
http://www.amazon.com/HP-F2215AA-ABA-Scientific-Calculator/dp/B000TDRHG8
For High School and early College degrees, knowing the basics helps later work when working with the more advanced tools. After learning (and being able to know) the basics then move into the more advanced tools. Both are needed. Generally when working on complex systems it's easiest to understand when it can be broken down into clear, demarcated segments. Overall it's complex but each individual segment is made up of basic understandable ideas. That way you don't need to look at everything all at once. This is the way much of networking works using the ISO reference model. Knowing the basics helps when you need to fall back
It's the difference between knowledge and understanding. Our society often fails to value the latter, since it is not immediately useful in the short-term and requires a wise long-view to appreciate. This is very much to our collective detriment.
This.
And with that in mind, I'd suggest a #2 pencil.
If that's too much work, I;d suggest a slide rule.
Someone has to build the calculators.
Thanks. I can obviously read Amazon reviews and such. However, I felt that the /. community probably had tastes more similar to my own, vs a bunch of kids taking algebra in high school/etc.
TI36 solar is an excellent choice. All the functionality with very little extra. Look for a model that has the scientific notation button (EE) as the primary function. Some have it this way, while most have it as a second function. If you use this a lot, and I suspect you do, you'll find it much more convenient to not constantly push the 2nd button.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
If you do RPN then there is
no option to use a TI calculator.
I wish HP would revisit the older HP-21 just add
a modern display perhaps an E-ink display or
pixelqi.com technology display.
To me the most interesting idea would
be a USB link not too different than the
BeagleboneBlack where you can interact
with a web browser (and charge the batteries).
Plug the USB link and the calculator keyboard and
display are fully mirrored. Unplug it to take into
a test. To qualify for a test it would need a serious
reset button that does the right thing.
In this case the calculator could be as full featured
as the HP41cv or the HP-48 and beyond.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Oh my that was a terrible episode.
Because the programmable calculators can do more than just math.
That is why they are EVIL and must be FEARED as the tools of Satan that they are! Only witches use them. BURN THE WITCHES!
I took two bottom of the line TI-30s ($9.99) and my slide rule (in 1997 or 1998). There's nothing on the FE or PE exam that needs anything other than basic calculations: trig functions, etc. You could quite easily do it with a decent slide rule: it's not like you need 8 digits of accuracy. Either you know which equation to use, and you know what steps are in the solution, or you don't. The "wrong" answers are all the typical screwups (b/a instead of a/b kind of stuff).
However.. since you're used to an HP with RPN.. I'd strongly suggest finding another HP to use. Taking the test is enough of a mental challenge you don't want to be dorking around with your calculator trying to remember how to x^y instead of y^x
Well, if the government agency that defines the rules for this test wasn't stuck in the 50s, that might be an option...
Yes they can, but is that a problem?
When I was in school, my math classes required the use of a graphing calculator (it was a private school, so they required students get either a TI-81 or TI-85). I discovered the TI Basic features and thought that I could ensure myself high test scores by simply writing programs that could solve all the types of problems that would be on the test--this wasn't illegal, provided we wrote our own programs. The first few times I did this, I fully intended to use them during the test, but I found that it was usually just quicker to solve the problem myself, though I'd occasionally check my answer using my program. It was basically impossible for me to instruct the calculator on how to solve the problem without fully learning how to do it myself. And it became clear to me that simply writing a program was the best method for me to study for tests. Prior to that, I would cram before the test and sometimes it would be sufficient and sometimes it wouldn't. But in writing the program, I could very easily tell when I was done studying and it took far less time than the traditional method. And, unlike cramming, programming was fun!
From the interest that I gained in programming TI Basic, I decided to take an intro to CS class the summer before my freshman year of college. That led to my majoring in CS and the fulfilling, enjoyable and well-paid profession that I've had for the past ~15 years.
I'm very grateful that my math teachers in high school didn't see things they way that you do.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
I use a Casio FX-260 Solar for these sorts of things. It has all your basic scientific functions, plus a nice statistics package. It doesn't have complex numbers or base conversions though. Still, for $10.00, it's not half bad!
I am the penguin that codes in the night.
So long as you had to write the programs yourself, that is fine. I'm more concerned about professional-style exams where there is a mix of math questions and questions where you are expected to recall the answer from memory.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I have 2 Casio FX-115ESPlus calcs, and I use them all the time. One at my desk, one in my toolbox. I think I paid $12.99 for them, and they are available everywhere.
I like RPN, but the Casio textbook entry input works very well, and comes in handy when I have more important things on my mind.
www.casio.com/products/Calculators_%26_Dictionaries/Fraction_%26_Scientific/FX-115ESPLUS/
They also rank very highly for accuracy.
http://www.rskey.org/~mwsebastian/miscprj/forensics.htm
voidware.com/calcs/torturetest.htm
I would be astounded to find, if they forbid certain models/features, that they do not have a whitelist of allowed models. THAT's where you should start your product research, not here, not with a vague, un-actionable question.
And Oh, By The Way, to echo another posters tongue in cheek remark, if you are in a scientific field, you really should know how to use a sliderule, even in these days. There ain't no batteries on a slide rule to run out, or be unavailable, nor are you ever likely to ever take a test where the use of one is forbidden.
-Red
I have heard of a thing, they call it a mind. Sure, they are a dime a dozen, and normally do not perform anything but the most mundane tasks. However, there are upgrade processes that one can perform on them that will allow even the most common mind to do amazing things!
That's the same thing my instructor said. You'll either get an A or an F, so If you're gonna trust your exam to a program, I'm sure you will understand the problem and test the program, and that will be the best study guide you could ever have.
As a bonus I got to check everyone else's tests (every one was different)
Cheers
The problem is that if highly-programmable calculators are permitted, test-prep companies like Kaplan will develop programs ostensibly for practice that would be based on reverse-engineered tests, change the test from measuring who is capable of handling this kind of engineering to who's capable of buying the "study materials" from Kaplan.
I can tell you, in the real world, I do not necessarily have access to documentation to do my technical job, I have to interpret what I see in front of me based on what I know and what I know how to do, not based on what I plug in to a device for an answer. I need to own the knowledge and the skills, not be in a position to constantly look them up for reference.
Once I've demonstrated an ability to know what skills need to be applied to a given situation, then it's not unreasonable to allow me to use tools, because I've already demonstrated that I understand what I am doing. That's why we have calculators in education in the first place, we stop doing multiplication, division, and trig after we've proven that we know how to do those.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
If a math test can be easily defeated by a mere calculator, I don't think it's a test that tests for anything important, anyway. Math is not just a rote memorization exercise, but sadly, many (including schools and colleges) treat it that way. It's sad, but I think most tests are so poorly made.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
What kind of test is defeated by a mere calculator? A poorly designed one. If your college/university/school is giving you such tests, you may want to consider the possibility that it's simply abysmal.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
It was good enough to get Jim Lovell back from the moon, dammit.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Get a triumph adler. If it's still not welcomed, then try a slide rule.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
There is a jerk just like you at my job. I'll ask coworkers for their opinion on a particular tool, and he has to but in and say, "You can just Google for the tool and find hundreds of them for sale." I don't ask my coworkers because I need a list of names, I ask them because I want their opinion, and usually specific to the type of work we do. Part of "growth" is just not knowing what is the most popular choice, but knowing the criteria people use when selecting a tool. And just like that jerk coworker, guys like you will complain how such requests for opinion and discussion waste your time by making you do other people's work for them, yet you have no problem spending way more time whining about wasting time than you would with actually moving on and doing whatever makes your time so important.
You want people to speak up, and not sugar coat things for the purpose of "inoffensiveness"? Well, the did, by down modding such garbage. You want to value honest expression over phony appearance, yet bitch when it turns out people disagree with you.
Amen! Where are my mod points when I need them?
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
Did you try Google?
Given that you like your 48, you might want to look at the details of the allowed calculator lists for the specific tests you have in mind and see which other HP RPN calculators would fit the bill.
The 35s is allowed on a number of tests where fancier calculators aren't, including the NCEES. Not the cheapest, but capable. Its support for polar complex numbers covers what you seem to be asking for.
It's the successor to the 33s, which had an odd keyboard but was otherwise ok, which in turn was the successor to the 32S/32SII. Those are still quite capable calculators if you find one around. Enough people considered the 42S to be the best calculator ever made that it goes for absurd prices on ebay.
So I suppose if you're not a "complete math wuss" and you need to convert polar to rectangular and vice versa while in a timed test, you spend a couple hundred extra keystrokes computing Taylor approximations for sine, cosine, and arctangent on a calculator which doesn't even have exponentiation?
And for unit conversions, if you want precise answers you memorize all conceivable conversion factors to fifteen digits?
Methinks you're the one who doesn't have the tiniest bit of understanding of what he's doing.
While they in theory test your problem solving and experience in a field, in fact they tend to be filled with memorization of minutia and lots of "gotcha" questions. Hence a calculator that can store notes in memory isn't allowed. Some don't allow calculators period because the ability to do base-2 math in your head is somehow important by their logic.
What it comes down to is that writing a good skills test is hard, and doing a computerized one is nearly impossible. So instead they make it hard through other means, namely memorization and trick questions.
Again, if your tests just test for rote memorization, chances are you're not attending a very good school to begin with.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Under 10$ in Radio Shack. Deg/Rad/Grad. statistics. nPr and nCr. R -> P and P->R, sin, cos, tan, arcsin, arccos, arctan, sinh, cosh, tanh, arctsinh, arccosh, arctanh, 18 levels of parenthesis, log, ln, exp, 10^(x), 1/x, sqrt, x^2, x^y, x^(1/y). All solar no batteries. Good softkeys. M+, M-, Sto/ MR. Don't know the model num because it is at work, and I am home.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
$1 scientific calculators with trig functionality. Tada.
Seems to be the accepted standard for just about any tests. If it's allowable, then you shouldn't have any problems with your HP48 being accepted.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Real Calc Plus on Android.
Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
I suppose that's the difference between now and ~20 years ago. Back then, the TI-81 had no way to load a program apart from typing it in manually. The TI-85 had a data cable, but that only allowed a program/data to be transferred between two TI-85s. If the calculator had simpler ways to load programs, there would have been huge potential for abuse. But we had to write the programs ourselves.
And it really isn't possible to write a program to perform a task without truly understanding it. It's a lesson that I learned during the course of my CS education. Whenever I've struggled to write code, it means that I haven't asked enough questions and I don't understand what I'm writing to the necessary level of detail. The challenge of writing code for a living isn't the writing part...writing code is easy. The challenge, when working on something really difficult, is asking yourself and others the right questions to solidify your understanding of what needs to be coded.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
I had a basic Casio (until my daughter made off with it) that sat on my desk beside my TI-89. For quick calculations I much preferred the Casio with its large clear numbers and nicer buttons. Plus it did various higher mathematical things fairly well. The key though is to read the manual as doing somethings such as working with polynomials was just weird.
I think that I will go buy another as I do miss it.
Some of my teachers said the same about cheat sheets. You will do your best to create one and try to fit all the information on a small piece of paper. Which means you basically learned all the material if you only need a little bit of a memory boost from a cheat sheet to finish the exam.
In later eduction we had open-book exams where you could take your books to the exam.
demonstrates the bankruptcy of contemporary education.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
it might be old then you.
And it became clear to me that simply writing a program was the best method for me to study for tests.
It is. Unfortunately too many people think that simply copying a program is the best method.
The TI-85 had a data cable, but that only allowed a program/data to be transferred between two TI-85s.
My recollection is that the cable included with the calculator only allowed calculator to calculator syncing, but that for about $30 you could buy the computer to calculator cable (and software) that conveniently allowed you to copy all your data to or from a computer... very useful if you had to demonstrate that your calculator was wiped for an exam.
and give it a command-line / greenscreen interface. Make it run in a shell on your android phone. And add an output "Copyright Rich0 1989" to the "- - version" option...
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
And for unit conversions, if you want precise answers you memorize all conceivable conversion factors to fifteen digits?
Ten places ought to be enough to get you from meters to atoms. Any test that needs more precision than that will surely allow a crib sheet.
Back in the day, people could easily remember ten digit phone numbers.
It's not really an answer to the Ask Slashdot question, but I don't see why one would want to use a non-approved programmed calculator.
The point of a calculator during exams is that you have a single tool with well defined capabilities, so as not to get an unfair advantage above students using a different brand of tool. For actual (professional) engineering calculations you will use a computer with decent programming tools (matlab, python, C/C++, or whatever your favorite is). In my 22 years of university (physics), scientific research, and industrial engineering, I have never felt the need for a fancy calculator. Nowadays I have RealCalc (Android app, clone of the decades-old Casio FX-8x line of non-programmable calculators) if I need a quick calculation during a meeting and a computer (combined with pen and paper) for everything else.
If your exams require that you have a graphing calculator, you'll probably need one. But I've never seen them used around me (R&D department counting a few thousand mechanical engineers).
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
I'm using the HP41CX iphone app. It's great! http://alsoftiphone.com/i41CXplus/
Yes, but the first result is this post!!!
I don't ask my coworkers because I need a list of names, I ask them because I want their opinion.
Would you ask their "opinion" on which is best, Coke or Pepsi? McDonalds vs. Burger King? Ford v.s Chevy? At the end of the day all questions about which is "best" are equally useless.
I've never seen an "Ask Slashdot" which was a good, answerable question. There's always a ton of missing info.
For example:
His main calculator (which he "appreciates") is an HP uses RPN. Is RPN a requirement for the cheap one? We don't know, that makes this question impossible to answer. Any answer we may give is no more useful than Amazon reviews.
Will he ever use it for anything other than this exam? If not, it makes no difference whatsoever what he buys. Any cheap scientific calculator from a major manufacturer will have pretty much the same set of trig functions and $20 is cheap enough to give it to a charity shop afterwards.
No sig today...
Nice theory. At my school, the cheat sheets often had example answers from previous years' tests, saved in cabinets carefully kept at their frats. It drove me nuts tha they had access to those previous tests.
The converse is that you'll still end up with the popular tools if you ask people what their preferred tools are and why...
OK, so I'll offer something different.
During my first year at uni, I used to own an HP-48G+ which I loved for its nice keypad and the RPN interface, but the actual device was hopelessly unreliable and had an unwelcome tendency to let me down by throwing hissy-fits during assessments. I eventually got around that particular limitation by replacing it with a TI-89, which (although lacking keypad quality and RPN) was, and still is, a vastly superior device on many levels.
But since this doesn't answer the OP's question, here's my take on it in the light of years of experience since my university studies...
The best calculator for examinations is: NONE AT ALL.
You will get much more kudos for arriving at any kind of solution (however incomplete) if you can show how you started from first principles. Also, you might actually remember how to use these skills years later if you do this.
I would like to be able to say this is what I did, but it would be a lie. I was not a brilliant maths student, since I relied too much on gadgets to help me through assessments. However, I have since revisited the subject and learned how to do it with more insight, and now find a certain pride in being able to "do" maths with no more hardware than a sheet of paper, a pencil and my brain.
Oh, and FWIW, although I still have my TI-89, most of the routine mechanical calculations I perform these days are done on the RealCalc Plus app on my phone.
bah I modrated redundant.
In college (15 years ago), my scientific calculator was a Sharp EL-509 (now succeeded with the EL531; $10 from Amazon) Unlike most scientific calculators, the '509 did order of operations automatically so you didn't have to convert your input into "calculator order" ahead of time. Really, it gave me the most-needed features of a graphing calculator, but in a form-factor that professors always let me use.
For my EE classes, the real benefit was not having to convert between vector and polar coordinates prior to problem input. I could input my problem in whatever coordinate form I had it in without having to go through tedious trig operations, which greatly sped up solving problems during exams (or homework, for that matter). With exams heavy on those conversions, I always finished the tests first.
Actually, back in the day, the 7-digit phone number was seen as an upper limit to the maximum length it was reasonable to memorize without much practice, and early implementations often used only 5 digits to further easy the burden. 10-digit-dialing didn't come about until almost the new century; in many places in the US it was impossible to dial a "local" number with 10 digits until the late 90s -- if you tried it would ask you to hang up and dial again without the area code or long-distance access prefix.
If you are used to RPN, stick with RPN. That's the mot important advice I can give you
For test, i always used the HP 32s or the good old HP 11c
Someting like the 32s is close to your 48, so you will be using it intuitively and fast
We all got the calc-calc cables with our TI-82s but only the teachers had the calc-serial cable and were reluctant to lend it out. Then someone in my class bought one, and we just used his.
I would just argue who ever is proctoring the test, let them see your calculator, let them clear it's memory and then let you use your calculator. On an interesting side note I wonder if it would be possible to make a normal "small" form factor calculator with a programming feature but that looks completely Innocent.
I took maths exams before equation solving calculators were commonplace. I had the quadratic equation formula programmed into my graphing calculator permanently taking up one of its 10 memories. And, yes, I can still regurgitate the equation at will 20 years later.
Pros: No batteries, no TEMPEST emissions, no NSA snooping...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The hard part is that they are insane on function placement, but you can not beat Casio for a good high end calculator for cheap.
I just wish someone would re make the HP programmers calculator. I need the Binary/hex/octal stuff more than anything else and all the calculators today just slap it on as a last minute extra buried in the settings.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
HP-32S or HP-32Sii
Should be allowed into any certification exam. Made until the early 2000's, so it should be relatively cheap and readily available. Will last the rest of your life if you don't do something stupid.
Engineering cred. I bought mine used on ebay a couple of decades ago and it's still selling for as much or more than what I paid for it.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
... just in case the exam facility is hit with an EMP, take your slide rule along.
Because sometimes you have to do the math right now and get it right. If you have 30 minutes (or an hour, or a day - the problem will take longer to solve on a computer than you have to go back to the office and run your analysis) to make a life or death decision, I pray you have the ability to do math in your head, and do it right.
You laugh, but some of us make these calls as part of our career. We have to know the math, the formulas, and how entire systems interact. When we get it wrong, people die. We're professional engineers.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I don't say none at all. Suppose you need the cosine of 36.87Â? yes, some people will recognize that as a 3-4-5 triangle, but what if it's the one thing you won't recognize?
Yes, it's better to have a simple scientific calculator there, if allowed. For the last 15 years, my father would buy cheap $8 scientific calculators, and sell them at cost to physics students who needed them. Nowadays, you'll probably get the same thing at Walmart.
The key here is: reliable, readable, and that you get it a month or so before your test and use it exclusively for that month, so that you don't waste thought trying to find the minus key.
As for vector calculus, I'd think you should know that well enough to use it. Last time I used it was for an rfi on a bridge misdesign, to show that two surfaces were not perpendicular to each other. The designing engineers--one of whom was a PE, and another of whom is now a PE, teased me about it, but it was the shortest, simplest way to prove the point to an engineer, and they did respect it. Key here, same as with the calculator, is that you don't use stuff you're not extremely familiar with, and that means lots of practice.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Would you ask their "opinion" on which is best, Coke or Pepsi? McDonalds vs. Burger King? Ford v.s Chevy? At the end of the day all questions about which is "best" are equally useless.
If the person being asked has some level of self-knowledge, and the asker has some knowledge about the responder, then the answers to all are useful. That you are incapable of understanding does not mean the answer is useless to everyone. Unless you assume you are the one and only smartest person on the planet.
Learn to love Alaska
Thanks. I can obviously read Amazon reviews and such. However, I felt that the /. community probably had tastes more similar to my own, vs a bunch of kids taking algebra in high school/etc.
See, that's where you went horribly wrong. For one thing there are members on here that still swear by slide rules (I am on the fence on that one). Some will point you at calculators that would still be verboten, and then there's guys like me that have enough math to just use something like this because square roots are hard to get right in your head. You should be able to do trig without the SIN, COS and TAN buttons. Remember the Unit Circle? If you came a to geek website to ask for help with trig and conversions from a calculator and didn't expect a good amount of heckling then you should have stuck with Google.
At 11$, it should fit the bill; made for scientists and engineers, should pass its own exams with 240 functions. The manual is here: http://h20628.www2.hp.com/km-ext/kmcsdirect/emr_na-c03519340-1.pdf Why recommend it? I own it and it does the job, if the problem is really for a calculator :)
Fuck doing math by hand, thats what computers are for!
I mean seriously, lets give everyone a TI-89 and teach them to use it!
Even better, make students learn a legitimate math software, like MathCAD or Maple or something
Why hold ourselves back?
Spoken like a person completely useless at math. You have to show your work by hand so the person grading the test knows that you know what you're doing. Yes, computers are good for crunching numbers and giving results, but we also need to know the numbers are correct. That comes from doing a lot of it by hand or verifying with different algorithms. The main problem with quantum computing right now is how do we verify the answers to these ridiculously large problems if all we have is one working model, D-Wave for instance? We want smarter mathematicians not ones more reliant on computers to solve problems. You will eventually get to where no one has the competency to do long division without help from a machine. That's not a good thing!
And Timmy strikes again by not posting an Ask Slashdot story to the Ask Slashdot section. Hey Timmy! They put those sections there and allow readers to filter by section for a reason. Quit being a fucking tool and post the stories properly. In other words, do your job.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
If I had mod points, you'd be king! I pretty much stated the same thing above, but added a square root button as those can be tricky to keep straight. I want to also thank my 11th grade pre-calculus teacher for making us do things the long way. Mr. Raines, you were a hardass but you really did help us out. We had add, subtract, multiply, divide, square root and I think he allowed Pi buttons as well. That's it because that's all you really "need" if you know what you're doing. After that it was how fast could you write legibly as you thought the problem out. Programmable calculators are for wusses and cheats in my book. Never used one, never will.
Do people still use calculators?
no, I don't have a sig
The Sharp El-406 series has been around for 20+ years. Trig, other bases, and a backspace. Current model is probably EL-406C, but I don't remember.
For me — reliable and familiar.
For you — familiar to standardized test proctors.
I had a TI-36 back in college ... once time, the classroom was so dark for the test (I think the teacher had something on the overhead) ... that the calculator wouldn't turn on. It made having a solar calculator kinda lame.
Luckily, the power needed to keep it on was less than the power to turn it on initially, so I was able to shine the flashlight on it once, and it stayed on for the rest of the test. But it was still pretty annoying.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The light hearted heckling about using slide rules later on varies from humorous to insightful. Some of the discussion by people about not needing calculators, or about the often debated issue on using calculators for testing can also be insightful. That is rather different than someone being an asshole because they purposely misunderstand what is being done here and/or because they value complaining more than actually adding to the conversation or even value it more than their own time they could save by ignoring the story.
Or the time wasted not looking for a calculator and pouring over /. posts? Yeah, productive use of time. Or, was it about the whining and having to ask /. when their precious programmable calculator isn't allowed in a test? Which one was the better use of time?
neither its sugary water Burgerking better burgers not familiar with chevy but had a few fords and didn't miss them when they were gone.
Calculator had my current one 20+ years so out of production for a long time.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
I recently took the FE exam and this was the best of all allowed calculators. It made some of the problems substantially faster to solve.
http://www.casio-usa.com/products/Calculators_%26_Dictionaries/Fraction_%26_Scientific/FX-115ESPLUS/
Interpolation, Polar-Rect, symbolic integration and differentiation, Root finding, and the option of symbolic interface.
It is not bad for $20 US at any Walmart.
No, you won't get more kudos for getting partial answers without a calculator. You're being graded against other students and they are using calculators; if you handicap yourself by not using a calculator you're likely not to do as well as the students who use them and your grade will suffer. In science and engineering you aren't graded on effort, you are graded on results.
Calculators are appropriate professional tools for many science and math tasks, though the requirement that you use a dumbed down one with no programming capability is artificial. Yes, I understand that the requirement is necessary to prevent cheating.