You kind of need calculators to get a specific answer for some calculations. Once you get into calculus you realize how important a calculator actually is for real-life calculus applications.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

What did we do before calculators? Slide rules and log tables. Einstein didn't have a calculator. Calculators make people lazy in exercising their brain and prevents them from understanding the basic mathematical processes.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

"It certainly is nice when taking a test over complicated topics to have to manually divide large numbers by small decimals and manually calculate logs," he said sarcastically.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Oh well if Einstein did it we all should! No. There's plenty of physicists that use calculators now because they're not idiots who make things way more complicated than they need to be, work smarter not harder. In no way do they prevent you from understanding the process or make your brain lazy. It makes you more accurate while saving time time.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Einstein may not have had a calculator, but he did devote a lot of time to maths and science. Even basic trigonometry would take ages without a calculator. I hardly think it would be beneficial to the average high schooler's learning to spend half the lesson working out the value of one angle.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

How would the world be a better place if we banned calculators from schools? I'm sorry, I completely fail to follow your logic.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

in the context of elementary schools I never really used calculators in elementary until the exponents I mean we really didn't want to do something to the nth power by hand if it's really large

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I started to type out a comment because NWing didn't seem like enough but then I realized that I can't find the words to express how much I disagree with this and exactly why. Since NWing still doesn't seem like enough, however, I'm still leaving this comment here telling you that I disagree with this post past the power of the NW button.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

What about cosine, sine and tangent? It is physically impossible to do that without a calculator. Or log and some matrices are difficult to do without a calculator. Calculators are very important and helpful.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

There's a difference between lazy and being efficient. As long as you know what a specific calculator function is doing and can interpret and use the results, there's nothing wrong with using them. The same goes for computers and there are many things that computers, mainly simulation software, can do that would take humans far too long to do. Time is money.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

What makes you think we're not teaching kids basic math concepts? The shit we see elementary school kids learning now is way more complex than the expected level 20 years ago. "New math" and all that. I feel that your opinion is outdated and poorly informed.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

From the way your post is worded, it sounds like you're addressing elementary schools. In my district at least, I can never remember using a calculator in math ever. It just doesn't happen, people aren't that stupid. But once you get into the upper grades and then out of school, you kind of have to use a calculator. Especially for things like sines and cosines - OP, you're so into kids learning math, and calculators eliminate wasting time to look up numbers on a conversion chart for such things.

by Anonymous 11 years ago