Scientific Calculator
By definition, a scientific calculator is a calculator designed to help you calculate science, engineering, and mathematics problems. It has way more buttons than your standard calculator that just lets you do your four basic arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
A digital calculator is a type of electronic calculator, usually but not always handheld, designed to calculate problems in science, engineering, and mathematics. They have completely replaced slide rules in traditional applications, and are widely used in both education and professional settings.
In certain contexts such as higher education, scientific calculators have been superseded by graphing calculators, which offer a superset of digital calculator functionality along with the ability to graph input data and write and store programs for the device. There is also some overlap with the financial calculator market.
USES
All of these extra buttons allow you to work with various kinds of numbers and problems such as these:
Trigonometry problems
Scientific numbers that have a multiplication by 10 to a certain power
π problems
Logarithm problems with base 10 and the natural base
Probability problems that use the factorial function
You can now use your calculator to help you solve trigonometry problems involving sine, cosine, tangent, inverses, and their hyperbolic functions. When working with trigonometric values, you can change the calculations between degrees, radians, and grads. Also, you now have access to a button for π and Euler's constant, e. There are also buttons that allow you to easily calculate exponents to the second, third, or any other power.
When working with scientific numbers, there is an ''Exp'' button that lets you easily and quickly input scientific numbers. Engineering problems make use of exponents, logs, and scientific numbers. Also, all of these types of problems are usually longer expressions that involve several steps to solve by hand. But with the use of a scientific calculator, you can now input the whole expression, push the equals button, and the calculator will perform all the calculations you need in the right order. Yes, the scientific calculator computes your problems following the order of operations.
FUNCTIONS
Modern scientific calculators generally have many more features than a standard four or five-function calculator, and the feature set differs between manufacturers and models; however, the defining features of a scientific calculator include:
- scientific notation
- floating-point arithmetic
- logarithmic functions, using both base 10 and base e
- trigonometric functions (some including hyperbolic trigonometry)
- exponential functions and roots beyond the square root
- quick access to constants such as pi and e
In addition, high-end scientific calculators generally include:
- cursor controls to edit equations and view previous calculations (some calculators such as the LCD-8310, badge engineered under both Olympia and United Office keep the number of the previous result on-screen for convenience while the new calculation is being entered.[1])
- hexadecimal, binary, and octal calculations, including basic Boolean mathematics
- complex numbers
- fractions calculations
- statistics and probability calculations
- programmability — see Programmable calculator
- equation solving
- matrix calculations
- calculus
- letters that can be used for spelling words or including variables into an equation
- conversion of units
- physical constants
While most scientific models have traditionally used a single-line display similar to traditional pocket calculators, many of them have more digits (10 to 12), sometimes with extra digits for the floating-point exponent. A few have multi-line displays, with some models from Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments (both US manufacturers), Casio, Sharp, and Canon (all three Japanese makers) using dot matrix displays similar to those found on graphing calculators.
HISTORY
The first scientific calculator that included all of the basic ideas above was the programmable Hewlett-Packard HP-9100A,[2] released in 1968, though the Wang LOCI-2 and the Mathatronics Mathatron[3] had some features later identified with scientific calculator designs. The HP-9100 series was built entirely from discrete transistor logic with no integrated circuits, and was one of the first uses of the CORDIC algorithm for trigonometric computation in a personal computing device, as well as the first calculator based on reverse Polish notation (RPN) entry. HP became closely identified with RPN calculators from then on, and even today some of their high-end calculators (particularly the long-lived HP-12C financial calculator and the HP-48 series of graphing calculators) still offer RPN as their default input mode due to having garnered a very large following.
The HP-35, introduced on February 1, 1972, was Hewlett-Packard's first pocket calculator and the world's first handheld scientific calculator.[4] Like some of HP's desktop calculators it used RPN. Introduced at US$395, the HP-35 was available from 1972 to 1975.
Texas Instruments (TI), after the production of several units with scientific notation, introduced a handheld scientific calculator on January 15, 1974, in the form of the SR-50.[5] TI continues to be a major player in the calculator market, with their long-running TI-30 series being one of the most widely used scientific calculators in classrooms.
Casio, Canon, and Sharp have also been major players, with Casio's fx series (beginning with the Casio fx-1 in 1972[6]) being a very common brand, used particularly in schools. Casio is also a major player in the graphing calculator market, and was the first company to produce one (Casio fx-7000G).
