ScientificCalculator 2007-02-02 18:38:52 2007-04-05 18:43:50 Definition calculator % this is the default PlanetMath preamble. as your knowledge % of TeX increases, you will probably want to edit this, but % it should be fine as is for beginners. % almost certainly you want these \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{amsfonts} % used for TeXing text within eps files %\usepackage{psfrag} % need this for including graphics (\includegraphics) %\usepackage{graphicx} % for neatly defining theorems and propositions %\usepackage{amsthm} % making logically defined graphics %\usepackage{xypic} % there are many more packages, add them here as you need them % define commands here A {\em scientific calculator} is a calculator with all the arithmetic capabilities of a basic calculator plus trigonometric, statistical, logarithmic, binary logic, etc. which are useful in various scientific applications. A typical scientific calculator has some forty to fifty keys and is capable of performing about twice as many operations than that (necessitating a ``Shift'' or ``2nd'' key). They are often capable of displaying results in binary, octal and hexadecimal, but are usually limited to integers in those bases. The calculator trigonometric functions are $\sin$, $\cos$, and $\tan$, which have their own keys. The arc versions of these are usually obtainable by using the ``Shift'' or ``2nd'' key. A scientific calculator may have a single memory register with the associated keys M+, MR and MC, but they often have several more registers to hold various values for use in statistical computations. For values greater than about $10^{12}$ or smaller than $10^{-12}$ (slightly more or less depending on the model) hardware scientific calculators must switch to scientific notation.