Best Online Scientific Calculators For You
Windows comes with a calculator, yes, but you can do so much better! Besides all the myriad freeware apps you can download, now there are Web 2.0 cloud calculators.
Why number crunch in the cloud?
1. It’s there whether you are on your work PC, your mobile laptop or your home PC.
2. It’s the same GUI whether you use your Windows PC or Mac (or Linux).
3. It’s not taking up any room on your hard drive and you don’t have to worry about updating it. If your hard drive crashes it will still be there (like your g-mail…)
3. So far they are all free and improving each year so you aren’t out any cash. It wouldn’t take much for them to remember settings, constants and a history tape. If Zoho and Google docs can, then so can an online calculator. How about a collaborative calculator that multiple developers could use to see the history tape?
Why not to use online calculators:
1. If your internet lags or goes down so does your calculator.
2. So far none of them remember your settings or last calculations.
3. Installed calculators can be far more sophisticated.
Here are the best ones I found in an online search:
After looking at Windows 95-esque online java based calculators for an hour, this one looked fantastic! I really like how the answer floats above the calc (with many more digits resolution) along with being displayed in the answer window. It has a pull down history window and the floating result has formatted formulas. It does conversions, 2D graphing, vector math and more! If you click on the pro version link you get a different form factor.
Web2.0calc is the only one of the four listed here that works on the iPad (which doesn’t support Flash).
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The mathopenref is not the prettiest, but it is my favorite functionally. I like the history tape and the inline function entry mode. The full screen mode should work well for touchscreen computers. There is even a simple 2D graphing calc thrown in on the same page, with some unique features. The Math Open Reference Project has an entire tutorial on math included on the site – the calculator is just one part of it.
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The motionNET calculator works like a normal algebraic entry model in that you enter the number first and then the function. The two above this one work like direct entry expression evaluators with the function, parenthesis as needed, then the number value entered in that order. I like the 5 memories and it has other pages with unit conversion and a tabulator. Unfortunately, I could not get the main calculator shortcut keys to work or the tabulator to accept data correctly. Otherwise it worked pretty well. MotionNET also has many other resources on it including a periodic table and drill charts and other engineering information.
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The link goes to the page with the launcher link. The reason is because the link launches a pop-up like window without browser controls. You wouldn’t be able to explore the site with that link. The 2D graphing is OK with some interesting features. This is ONLY a graphing calc and not intended for a single numeric result calculation.
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For other online calculator sources visit:
Martindale’s Calculators Online
Written July 24, 2010 - Vic Richardson
