SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR Page 1 of 53 11/14/2008 GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR by John Denton Concordia University Copyright 2008 John Denton Reproduction for non-commercial purposes permitted Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 3 Getting Started ................................................................................................................................3 Editing Expressions ........................................................................................................................ 6 Sharp EL-531W .......................................................................................................................... 6 Casio fx-300MS.......................................................................................................................... 7 Powers and Roots............................................................................................................................ 8 Squares, Cubes, Reciprocals, Square Roots, Cube Roots........................................................... 8 Example: Solving Quadratic Equations................................................................................. 9 Other Powers and Roots............................................................................................................ 10 Example: Compound Interest .............................................................................................. 11 Example: Future Value of a Series of Payments ................................................................. 13 Example: Monthly payment on a Loan................................................................................ 14 Exponentials and Logarithms ....................................................................................................... 14 Keys for Functions and Their Inverses ..................................................................................... 14 Entering Numbers in Scientific Notation.................................................................................. 15 Why e? Why Natural Logarithms? .......................................................................................... 15 Example: Continuously Compounded Interest ........................................................................ 16 Example: Solving for t............................................................................................................. 17 Example: Finding t using the Present Value Formula ............................................................. 18 Thanks for the Memories.............................................................................................................. 19 Memory Locations.................................................................................................................... 19 Example: Solving Quadratic Equations using Memory Locations...................................... 19 M is for Memory....................................................................................................................... 20 Example: Riemann Sums and Approximate Integration ..................................................... 20 Play it again, Sam ......................................................................................................................... 23 Playing the Angles ........................................................................................................................ 24 Right Triangles.......................................................................................................................... 24 Degrees, Minutes, Seconds....................................................................................................... 25 Law of Cosines ......................................................................................................................... 26 Law of Sines ............................................................................................................................. 27 Converting between Degrees and Radians ............................................................................... 27 Sharp EL-531W .................................................................................................................... 27 Casio fx-300MS.................................................................................................................... 28 SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR Page 2 of 53 11/14/2008 Solving Triangles Using Memory Locations............................................................................ 28 Given Three Sides (“SSS Case”) .......................................................................................... 28 Given Two Sides and the Included Angle (“SAS Case”)..................................................... 29 Given Two Angles and the Included Side (“ASA Case”) .................................................... 29 Given Two Angles and a Side Opposite (“AAS Case”)....................................................... 30 Given Two Sides and an Angle Opposite (“ASS Case”)...................................................... 30 Rectangular and Polar Coordinates........................................................................................... 31 Sharp EL-531W .................................................................................................................... 31 Casio fx-300MS.................................................................................................................... 31 Sinh, Cosh, and All the Hype.................................................................................................... 32 Fractions, Proper and Improper .................................................................................................... 33 Example: Row Reduction of Matrices..................................................................................... 34 Touching all the Bases (Sharp only)............................................................................................. 36 Vital Statistics ............................................................................................................................... 37 Sharp EL-531W ........................................................................................................................ 37 Entering Statistics Mode....................................................................................................... 37 Entering Data ........................................................................................................................ 38 Correcting Data..................................................................................................................... 39 Displaying and Calculating with Statistical Variables.......................................................... 40 Casio fx-300MS........................................................................................................................ 41 Entering Statistics Mode....................................................................................................... 41 Entering Data ........................................................................................................................ 42 Correcting Data..................................................................................................................... 43 Displaying and Calculating with Statistical Variables.......................................................... 44 Examples................................................................................................................................... 46 Modes and Setup........................................................................................................................... 47 Sharp EL-531W ........................................................................................................................ 47 Resetting ............................................................................................................................... 47 Normal and Statistics Modes ................................................................................................ 47 Display Formats.................................................................................................................... 48 Degrees, Radians, Grads....................................................................................................... 49 Casio fx-300MS........................................................................................................................ 49 Resetting ............................................................................................................................... 49 Computational, Statistics, and Regression Modes................................................................ 50 Degrees, Radians, Grads....................................................................................................... 50 Display Formats.................................................................................................................... 50 Fraction Display.................................................................................................................... 52 Dot versus Comma................................................................................................................ 53 SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR Page 3 of 53 11/14/2008 Introduction The modern scientific calculator