Wanting to settle a debate... It's been almost 20 yrs since HS but I remember using a calculater for Calc, Trig & Geomentry, but my friend says she never was allowed to use one... can the work really be done without one?
2007-09-03 11:21:46 · 27 answers · asked by lipstiklsbn 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Mathematics
Ok, we've established that I was spoiled being able to use a calculater (possibly even deprived the opportunity to push my limits) but just to date myself... what is a sliderule or an abacus?
2007-09-03 11:35:37 · update #1
Of course. What do you think people did before the 1970s?
2007-09-03 11:26:29 · answer #1 · answered by pepper 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I was in high school and college close to 50 years ago, and we never used calculators. If you wanted a trig value, there was a trig table in the book. If you wanted to to complicated math, there was a log table. If you wanted to do even more complicated math, there were slide rules. Calculators pretty much ended the need for all this. The early "calculators" were essentially the same power as the next-to-nothing cost calculators we have now, but they cost a bundle. I remember getting permission from the instructors to use it in tests in college.
The only paradox seems to be that more was learned in those days than it taught now. Or maybe we are being presumptuous.
2007-09-03 18:33:33 · answer #2 · answered by cattbarf 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
yes, in college I wasn't allowed to use a calculator on calculus tests because so much information can be plugged into them and they can be used for cheating.
However, the tests used numbers that were easy to calculate in your head or quickly on paper.
I always used calculators for my homework problems and often times I had to use math software for very complicated problems.
Remember, times have changed since the 80's. Students now do calculations for homework that would not have been possible 20 years ago. They would have taken a lifetime to complete, but now with computer software, they take a couple hours.
As far as being able to get through an entire semester of calculus without using a calculator or computer? impossible
2007-09-03 18:27:59 · answer #3 · answered by PD 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes. I took these classes before electronic pocket calculators existed in the form they do today. The electromechanical calculators we had were big, heavy, slow, and noisy and most of them had no square root key, let alone any of the log or trig functions available on today's pocket scientific calculators. We had to use slide rules of printed tables of function values for these, perhaps calculating the square roots by hand.
Even then, it was mostly my physics and chemistry classes rather than math that were computation intensive, but I was glad to have a scientific calculator by the time I took my numerical analysis class. Even though pocket calculators weren't around when I entered college, nearly everyone had one by the time I graduated and hardly anyone was still using a slide rule.
2007-09-03 18:58:15 · answer #4 · answered by devilsadvocate1728 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sure thing - I wasn't allowed to use one until Year 10. Clearly not all math problems can be solved without a calculator, but in non-calculator exams the exam writer will rig the questions so you only work relatively easy numbers. Like in trig, our answers would always be some function of pi/3, pi/6 or pi/4.
2007-09-03 18:44:14 · answer #5 · answered by larkie 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
They didn't have calculators until the 1970s, so between the time of Isaac Newton and the 1970s, all math was done with paper and pencil. They did have a slide rule for many years, but that is also a "recent" invention.
2007-09-03 18:26:58 · answer #6 · answered by Patrick S 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes of course. Geometry was performed by Euclid over 2000 years ago. Calculus was in full bloom long before calculators were available. Makes you have a little more respect for our predecessors, don't you think?
2007-09-03 18:31:46 · answer #7 · answered by ironduke8159 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I was never allowed to use a calulator for calculus, Trigonometry or geometry in high school.
That was 27 years ago, but still, the work can be done without electronic help.
We were allowed a slide rule, but even without a slide rule you can still do the work.
2007-09-03 18:27:34 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It had to be when I was at school, because that was a good few years before the first calculators came into being.
We used tables of logarithms and antilogarithms to convert multiplication and division to addition and subtraction, tables of squares and square roots, and trigonometric tables of sines, cosines and tangents.
After taking O levels, we were allowed to use a slide rule.
2007-09-03 18:30:56 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The development of calculus started in 1800BC (way before the age of calculators).
I took calculus last year and I was allowed to use calculators except for some parts on a test but like your friend, my friend told me that his teacher didn't let him use calculators.
2007-09-03 18:29:06 · answer #10 · answered by Hydronle 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Calculators weren't allowed in my school, we used slide rules.
Don't forget that calculus and geometry were invented long before the calculator or the slide rule.
2007-09-03 18:27:05 · answer #11 · answered by sudonym x 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋