Mathematics – the app

A while ago I blogged about the Wolfram Alpha app, which I love and which has been the limit of my mathematical apps on my phone since. I haven’t really needed anything else. The other day, however, I was on the play store trying to find a decent app which would allow me to type maths easily. I failed in my search (if you know of a good one for android do let me know!) but I did find this app called “Mathematics – for android” by daboApps.

The app was free so I downloaded it (along with many others) to see what they could do. Most of them I deleted fairly quickly, but this one is one I feel could be extremely useful. It does some of the things Wolfram Alpha does, but it isn’t a like for like, there are things WA does that Mathematics doesn’t, and vice versa. Here is a screenshot of the menu screen:

What you can’t see are two sections titled “Calculator” and “Calculations”. Which are excellent high powered calculators.

There are also many other functions that I’m just beginning to explore. There functions section will plot and solve polynomials, differentiate, integrate etc:

It will solve equations, even systems of equations:

The stats section has these tests:

Which seem easy to use. I’ve not managed to fully explore yet but I had a little play:

So far, I’d certainly say it isn’t bad at all for a free app!

The Wolfram Alpha App

As a maths teacher and, well geek, I have been aware of Wolfram Alpha for a while. My use of it had been limited to the computer and I really had only used it to check a couple of things and for drawing graphs to show pupils in my lessons.

The other day I was working on a solution the the problem Colin Beveridge (@icecolbeveridge) posed on the latest episode of “Wrong, but useful” (I intend to blog my solution later, although I’m not altogether happy with it). During the process I had a long polynomial with a load of fractions and roots involved and I needed to differentiate. As I started to do this by hand I remembered James Grime (@jamesgrime) in this numberphile video make mention to a Wolfram Alpha app. I thought, I’ll check that out.

I downloaded the app for a mere £1.86 and I reckon it’s got to be one of the best £1.86s ever spent. What the app basically does is turn your phone something that dwarves the technology I used during my maths degree (which included it’s own predecessor “Mathematica”).

For those if you that don’t know, Wolfram Alpha is a “knowledge engine”. I believe it is the brainchild of brothers Stephen and Conrad Wolfram, and that the intention was to create something that would allow people to save masses amount of time.

You can ask it all sorts of questions, from maths, to anagrams to a plethora of other things. I’ve only just scratched the surface!

It differentiated my troublesome polynomial in a matter of seconds, which saved me an absolute ton of time. Infact, I have used it (only for maths stuff) everyday since I got it. I would certainly recommend this to everyone!

Here are some screenshots of its awesomeness:

A couple from my workings:

And one for those of you who love polar graphs: