Scientific Calculators

Scientific Calculators

By Anne Ahira

Scientific calculators are a type of electronic calculator that is usually small enough to be handheld. They are intended to calculate physics, mathematics, and engineering problems.

Where your grandfather or even your father had to use a bulky slide rule, even children are now shown how to operate scientific calculators.

Your standard calculator is capable of doing approximately five functions, such as adding, subtracting, multiplying and division of numbers, but in order to have additional functions that may be needed for more involved mathematical operations, Scientific calculators are needed.

As wonderful as standard calculators are, many of these scientific calculators are extremely powerful and have truly amazing computational power. However, in either kind of calculator, they are only as fine and exact as the operator.

Scientific or higher math calculations require the use of different signs than the [+], [-], [Division], [=], and [0] to [9]. In general, scientific calculators have the following keys: [+], [-], [x], [/] [Division], [=], [DEL], [AC], [.], and of course [0] to [9].

Besides those keys used for normal additional, subtraction, multiplication and division scientific calculators can perform a tremendous amount of more intricate operations such as tangent, cosine, sine, square rooting, cubing and squaring.

Scientific calculators will also give the operator fast access for constants like pi and e, and perform exponents and roots that go beyond the square root. Most of them are capable of performing trigonometry functions, and a few calculators also can perform hyperbolic trigonometry.

In general all of them can use logarithmic function that use both base 10 as well as base e. They will all have a setting for creating a floating decimal.

Some scientific calculators today will be able to deal with complex numbers, basic Boolean math, octal calculations, work in binary mode and use hexadecimals.

Those more advanced calculators will also be used for such things as statistics as well as probability calculations. One of the further advanced calculators functions that many find important is the complex programability of many calculators.

In 1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced the first scientific calculator. It was a programmable version, making it highly advanced, and was called the HP-9100A. Scientific calculators have come much further than this basic model was capable of performing, as in all our technically advanced aids have.

If you are purchasing a scientific calculator for someone who is pursuing scientific calculations, it is important to know prior to purchase the kinds of calculations that person will be needing to accomplish as there is often a vast difference between one scientific calculator and another. Thus not all scientific calculators perform alike.

Here's Scientific Calculators Selections:

Texas Instruments TI-30X IIS 2-Line Scientific Cal...	Customer Review: Click Here for More Info
Casio Advanced Scientific Calculator with 2-Line N...	Customer Review: Click Here for More Info
TI-36X Pro Scientific Calculator...	Customer Review: Click Here for More Info
Texas Instruments TI30XA Scientific Calculator...	Customer Review: Click Here for More Info
HP 35s Scientific Calculator...	Customer Review: Click Here for More Info