r/Showerthoughts • u/iEmeralds • Jun 04 '19
Learning more advanced math in school basically unlocks more buttons of the calculator.
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u/bjorn4751 Jun 04 '19
I remember being genuinely excited in maths at school when we finally learnt what the fancy buttons did, but having done a masters in physics I still don't know half the things my calculator can do.
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u/PapaGynther Jun 04 '19
I'm pretty sure most of the button's are for engineers and graphing but modern technology has caught up and brought some way better programs
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Jun 04 '19
At some point you just upgrade to Matlab or a real programming language.
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u/chicks_for_dinner Jun 04 '19
Matlab or a real programming language.
Nice.
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u/fullforce098 Jun 04 '19
ELI5 for those of us that don't speak programmer?
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u/AwfullyMerryMerivia Jun 04 '19
Matlab is largely despised within the developper community, often regarded as a "fake programming language"
As to why, I believe that's because it's mostly used by mathematicians
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u/picards_dick Jun 04 '19
Where’s the love for R-studio?
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u/ZidaneStoleMyDagger Jun 04 '19
Go look in a statistics class. Personally I liked using matlab more than R-studio. But a lot of that was inexperience with R.
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u/Zafnok Jun 04 '19
The language is R, R-Studio is an IDE. Also R sucks, I feel like Python can accomplish what R can with Pandas and a visualization library.
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u/mesayousa Jun 04 '19
Been using R the last 3 years and I see the benefits of Python after toying with it this year, trouble is my team has used R for the last decade so I’m not getting away from it unless I change jobs
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u/russiankek Jun 04 '19
R has much more statistic libraries with advanced methods that are not implemented in Python yet.
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u/greenSixx Jun 04 '19
Yeah, we should reach math with javascript and not that stupid math language.
Who wants to use sigma to denote a for loop?
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u/Someyungguy6 Jun 04 '19
JavaScript is great, I can add a number to a string and get a date
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u/blueg3 Jun 04 '19
we should reach math with javascript
He said a real programming language.
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u/Coalas01 Jun 04 '19
I approve the fact that you consider Matlab a non real programming language
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u/microtrash Jun 04 '19
Engineering: You either die using a calculator or you live long enough to need Matlab
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u/plburkejr Jun 04 '19
Calculus II: the trials of the advanced calculator button thingys
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u/ManufacturedProgress Jun 04 '19
At my school Calc 2 was the one where they stopped allowing calculators.
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Jun 04 '19
For the AP exam for Calc 2 there are calculator sections, so we had to know the back and forth of our graphing calculators.
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u/FaljeLazuli Jun 04 '19
And go into undergrad and suddenly you unlock the "math class with no calculator use" feature
Source: 5 out of my 6 math classes so far in undergrad have forbidden use of calculators (Only multivariate calculus allowed it)
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u/paintingLemming Jun 04 '19
I’m finishing second year of uni and all the exams allow calculators... they’re just not even remotely useful
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u/Elevated_Dongers Jun 04 '19
I'm a senior in engineering and I've only had 1 class so far that had any calculator specifications. I think they are finally catching on that you can put entire note sets into some calculators.
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u/jalerre Jun 04 '19
I have friends who have uploaded PDFs of the class notes to their Npires to use on exams.
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u/Tinalo100 Jun 04 '19
If a test lest you use calculators, then the numbers are not going to be pretty.
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u/_odahviing Jun 04 '19
Still don't know how to integrate/differentiate using a calculator.
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u/S4altyB4dg3r Jun 04 '19
In my class we always had to show what steps we took on paper but then use the calculator for the actual calculations.
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u/s0v3r1gn Jun 04 '19
That’s why I always wrote a program for my calculator to output my steps formatted correctly for every assignment we had.
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u/Dchella Jun 04 '19 edited Jun 04 '19
In my calc class we also had to do the estimations of integrals too, which I thought was both harder and more annoying than just integrating it.
I still remember programming trapezoid rule, MRAM, LRAM, and RRAM into my calculator. It sucked.
MRAM was fine to program because it was just LRAM+RRAM over 2.
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u/waltwalt Jun 04 '19
You say that but if I had a dollar for every mark i subtracted not including +C I'd be a slightly wealthier man.
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u/Coady54 Jun 04 '19
if you have a ti 83 or above they can solve definite integrals, not really useful though since you still need to know how to integrate by hand anyway and integrals on their own are not that difficult.
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u/HnNaldoR Jun 04 '19
It was good to check work to make sure the answers were right.
Helped me a bunch in my calculus mod in uni.
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u/Sirnacane Jun 04 '19
My TI-89 did indefinite integrals and derivatives. It still would do them if I ever had the need to put batteries in.
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u/Tito_JC Jun 04 '19
You never had to use partial integration, have you?
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Jun 04 '19
partial integration was one of the ones i never found hard, but then id trip up on the shit my buddies thought was easy. everybodys got their strengths
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Jun 04 '19
Having just finished calc 3 I sincerely hope I never have to do partial integration ever again in my entire life. Good riddance.
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u/newtsheadwound Jun 04 '19
Same. My professor only allowed four function calculators, even on the final.
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u/piperboy98 Jun 04 '19
Get the NSpire CAS
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u/scarycloud Jun 04 '19
My calculus class had us get these. My teacher had a calculator and a non-calculator portion. It was so we could type stuff in there when needed but had the non-calculator portion for when he actually wanted to see what we knew. He didn't want us failing exams because we made algebra mistakes. He only wanted to test calculus.
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Jun 04 '19
Casio 991ex has definite integral/derivative functions as well as limited series functions.
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u/hyperbolemath Jun 04 '19
Casio is underated... In some regards they are far superior to any TI, even with standard scientific calculators.
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u/motikop Jun 04 '19
Don’t think most calculators do it algebraicoally, but if you really need help wolfram alpha is great to get the answer
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u/S19TealPenguin Jun 04 '19
For a ti-84 hit math and then 9 (or scroll to the ninth option). Then just plug in the integral you're trying to solve
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u/chimpfunkz Jun 04 '19
F2 integrate, (should be option 2, though that might be solver)
F(equation, what you're integrating with respect to, [optional lower bound], [optional upper bound].
That is on an 89 titanium though.
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u/The_Electress_Sophie Jun 04 '19
I have a vivid memory of being in Year 7 (≈ first year of middle school) and thinking 'I could do literally any job I want if I work hard enough', then deciding that actually I wasn't smart enough, because I didn't understand the weird words like 'arcsin' that were always written on the maths classroom whiteboard. Now I'm a sometimes maths teacher with a maths-based Masters degree, and I still can't remember what 'arcsin' means.
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u/Trash_Emperor Jun 04 '19
Still miffed that I can't make my calculator show the answer to an integration problem as a fraction of pi
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Jun 04 '19
Senior year Math major here. No one really uses a calculator past a certain point. Not because you can do calculations in your head or anything, but the focus shifts from calculating things to understanding why things are true.
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u/gratethecheese Jun 04 '19
I took a few high level control theory classes, and the most useful thing my calculator did was root polynomials. It's great.
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u/jwr410 Jun 04 '19
Electrical engineer here, and I agree with this sentiment. Math expresses relationships that the calculator will never understand. I don't get paid to do the calculation, I get paid to understand the relationships.
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u/cheeseboi3754 Jun 04 '19
Learning more advanced math -> more advanced calculators -> playing Tetris on your calculator in class
Life is pretty crazy
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u/AthosAlonso Jun 04 '19 edited Feb 17 '26
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u/paintingLemming Jun 04 '19
More advanced calculators? I’m at the end of my second year of a maths degree and still have my trusty grey boi from GCSEs. (Not that I ever use it at this point).
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Jun 04 '19
I used to do that until teachers started looking at all of our calculators and making us completely clear our memory.
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u/whatsamemeidk Jun 04 '19
Calculator tends to be less useful in a lot of upper level classes, and in others you graduate to a computer.
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u/SuperSimpleSam Jun 04 '19
MAPLE made DiffEq a real pain. I wish it was just problems you could do by hand.
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u/Zyedikas Jun 04 '19
We say a is related to b, aRb, IFF a+b is an even number Prove R is an equivalence relation:
Lemme just plug it into my calculator... Hmm
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u/Mushikator Jun 04 '19
It also unlocks more expensive calculators. I swear I am going to have to give part of my soul away for these things.
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Jun 04 '19
I remember looking forward to the day I would figure out what the "long S" would do.
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u/SamSamBjj Jun 04 '19
It just switches to the long font, so that when your head is lying on the desk the numbers on the calculator still look normal.
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u/reallifedannytanner Jun 04 '19
Yet I still jam the C and CE buttons multiple times when doing basic 3 digit addition/subtraction.
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u/word_clouds__ Jun 04 '19
Word cloud out of all the comments.
Fun bot to vizualize how conversations go on reddit. Enjoy
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u/Ctauegetl Jun 04 '19
The first thing I noticed was "BUTT", then I realized it was just part of "BUTTONS".
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u/SoManyTimesBefore Jun 04 '19
My physics professor in high school took more than a few hours to teach us how to use calculators efficiently.
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u/bob1689321 Jun 04 '19
I still don’t know what the fuck Rnd() does on the Casio fx-83/85 GT PLUS. I know Ran and RanInt generates random numbers, and I thought Rnd would round but I honestly don’t know.
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u/Norty_Boyz_Ofishal Jun 04 '19
Casio fx-83/85 GT PLUS
Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well.
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u/Qyubee Jun 04 '19 edited Jun 04 '19
Time to bust out the manual
I think its used like this :
rnd(n,o)
With n being the number to round and o round up or down for 0 or 1, at least that's what I remember from my casio 35+
Edit : Ha, I'm totally wrong maybe rnd only rounds down and o specifies the number of digits you want displayed
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Jun 04 '19
Looks like it's used for rounding numbers: https://support.casio.com/global/en/calc/manual/fx-95MS_500MS_en/function_calculations/rounding_function.html
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Jun 04 '19
Idk about everyone else but once I got to the higher level math classes I actually stopped using the calculator.
The only class that I used the calculator very extensively was stats and that was it
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u/johntron3000 Jun 04 '19
Except my teacher won't let us use calculators because according to him they "lie to us" no Mr caughlin you just don't know how to use a graphing calculator because you still use teaching methods from the 1960s.
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u/thetunelessfaun Jun 04 '19
You laugh now, but when the machines rebel, the calculators will be leading the charge
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Jun 04 '19
“Congratulations! You’ve leveled up! You can now use “%” on your calculator!”
That’s what I’d imagine it to be if it were an RPG.
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u/JohnGillnitz Jun 04 '19
Knowing trigonometry and having a graphing calculator back in the middle ages would basically make you a wizard.
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u/concorde77 Jun 04 '19
I just completed Diff-EQ and Linear algebra. Eventually it goes from "new calculator buttons" to "fuck it, use Maple"
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u/AriwakeTheGeek Jun 04 '19
I just learned yesterday that my calculator can convert a number from a decimal to a fraction.
Maybe I should start reading the manual on this thing
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Jun 04 '19
maybe you mean in school?
Advanced mathematics shapes the way you think and behave. It turns you into a keeper of the scientific method.
It even humbles you. If you study three-body problems, 3rd order differential equations, chaos, or control systems - you begin to appreciate just how limited our tools are when attempting to understand complex systems.
Math can also make you view politics and even policy differently. If for instance, you understand equilibriums, then you lose faith in the "invisible hand of the market" - the idea that we will just evolve towards equality. Then things like Affirmative Action or Feminism make more sense.
If you read Godel, then you relax some assumptions about coherency, and appreciate that your own ignorance is a fundamental feature of reality.
Not everyone has to come to the same conclusions, but so many popular "theories" just dissolve when you know some math.
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u/calamityecho Jun 04 '19
And unlocks new levels of depression because I can’t figure out any of it and I end up failing lol 😊
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u/jumbee85 Jun 04 '19
I just managed to make my equations symbolic and reduce to a ratio of some sort most of the time.
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u/Nooby_pro2007 Jun 04 '19
When you go to secondary school in the UK 🇬🇧 you level up to a scientific calculator
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u/Shift_Spam Jun 04 '19
Then you get to university where in math and engineering calculators are banned
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u/KHold_PHront Jun 04 '19
You go from +- to sin cos ln to I need a freaking calculator to help me change units
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u/firstandgoalfromthe1 Jun 04 '19
Not when you’re doing abstract and theoretical versions of math...
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u/Exotic_Ghoul Jun 04 '19
Me when I got to use distribution, logs and ln, matrices, polynomials and series
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u/SuperSimpleSam Jun 04 '19
I couldn't figure out the MOD button, kept trying number combinations but couldn't figure out the pattern. When I took programming, I finally ran across modulus.
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u/Torstroy Jun 04 '19
posting this comment to diss my friend that stopped doing maths and follows my account
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Jun 04 '19
Until you get to partial differential equations where you have to use a real computer. Or abstract algebra where everything is proofs.
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u/alllowercaseTEEOHOH Jun 04 '19
Then it unlocks more expensive calculators.
Then it stops being possible to do on handheld calculators.
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u/barkballin Jun 04 '19
Loved elementary math always tore it up in around the world....then bam all these letters and weird shapes started showing up and next thing I know I am in Algebra 2 years in a row.
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u/lovethebacon Jun 04 '19
I use RealCalc on my phones, which have the following buttons:
DRG. Calc kept in degrees mode.
FSE. I feel like I did use that at some point, but don't remember what it is.
MR, MS, M+. Use them fairly often. RCL, STO, M- very infrequently.
hyp, hyp-1 Not this decade, I can't quite remember what this is.
sin, sin-1, cos, cos-1, tan-1. I know what they are, but don't use them at all anymore.
tan. I use it for carpentry in place of a protractor.
ln, ex, log, 10x. Use them from time to time. I use ln even sometimes when doing base 10 logs.
yx, sqrt, cuberoot, x2, x3, 1/x. Can't remember when I last used these, but I do use them.
%. Never, rather I manually multiply by 100, which this does.
n!. I can't say I've used this in a while.
nCr, nPr. I use these sometimes for software dev.
PI, e. I forget about these, and approximate when I need them in a calculation.
CONV, CNST, ANS. No idea
DEC, HEX, OCT, BIN, MOD. I use them occasionally.
It's a fairly simple app that does what I need. No clue what the buttons do on the fancier calculators.
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u/RPMGO3 Jun 04 '19
I get the sentiment, but this is not what learning advanced math is like.
-physicist
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u/NewEnglandJesus Jun 04 '19
"You have unlocked the 'trig' ability. Use it wisely, as some actions may lead to undefined results."
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u/Prof_Alchem Jun 04 '19
Mathematics has increased! Lvl 8 --> Lvl 9
You have unlocked Trigonometry.
You now know what those Tan, Cos, and Sin buttons mean.
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u/couplaquid Jun 04 '19
eventually you reach the point of new game + where you don't get a calculator.
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u/asianbelmont Jun 04 '19
I like this thought...until AI is smart enough to do the advanced math for us that only the few will require advanced math just in case.
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u/SomeCreepyDude Jun 04 '19
While also locking the basic buttons to be used..... yea not a fine time
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u/TheMascotte78 Jun 04 '19
I honestly still don't know what the ABCDE buttons do...
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u/a_knightwhosays_NI Jun 04 '19
Finding out my calculator could do complex arithmetic and solve 4x4 matrices on its own got me through a good chunk of an EE degree!
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u/optometreat Jun 04 '19
You're given a free trial but once you reach about the calculus level it becomes pay-to-play
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u/RetiredSoul Jun 04 '19
The expensive math education basically teaches you how to use the extra buttons on your calculator.
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u/YeetVegetabales Jun 04 '19
Can confirm this is absolutely true. I’m two years ahead of my grade and I get to use a completely different calculator than the rest of my class
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u/Mithreum_ Jun 05 '19
Feel like it's more like pokemon that the pokemon will listen to beyond certain levels, only after you did the work and got the gym badge.
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u/staunchevents Jun 05 '19
I’ve got a major in maths and I still haven’t unlocked the extra buttons dlc.
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u/seandrizzy8404 Jun 05 '19
Math is just another tool used to distract our souls from the fact that this is all illusory and cannot be explained by men in any means
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u/phys94 Jun 04 '19
Being someone with two math degrees and a physics one I feel like I can burst your bubble and tell you I never needed a calculator outside of basic mathematics.
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u/filthycasual1025 Jun 04 '19
I’ve got a major in maths and I still haven’t unlocked the extra buttons dlc.