In many cases it’s going to be faster for someone to use a handheld scientific/graphing calculator to do arithmetic/algebra/etc, but with a little practice on matlab or mathematica (and even to some extent on just a plain old windows calculator) knowing the right keyboard shortcuts can make you a real whiz on them, and you can perform pretty complicated calculations rapidly.

(1) I used to own a Little Professor Calculator when I was a kid. I used it all the time, usually not for anything specific – just to play around with numbers. Excellent choice for a picture.

(2) I, too, have been a Slowbe, except I was using Maple instead of Excel…which is worse, I think. The geologist I was working with didn’t notice the $1000 calculator we had open, either. But my calculator was in my backpack, so there was no 300m round trip necessary.

(3) I don’t have a basic calculator, but I do have 2 “regular” scientific calculators in my desk, and I use them at least 10 times as often as my graphing calculator or my computer. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to find the buttons immediately, instead of navigating through menus to do simple arithmetic.

All three ideas were inspired by this post, and hit me in rapid succession. I say, “Well done!”