Today, technologies make everything easy and fast. And sometimes, when we see the ancient marvels of engineering, we wonder: “How they designed this without computers”? And the answer is: “with knowledge, inspiration and hard work”. However, being almost irreplaceable, computers makes us more and more adjective. Our brains become lazy and we are losing someContinue reading “How to calculate square/cubic root by hand?”
Category Archives: Math
How to plot the Julia Set
In the previous post we discussed the Mandelbrot set. There is another beautiful algebraic fractal, called Julia set š. It is named after the French mathematician Gaston Julia, who has discovered. It is obtained by the same formula as the Mandelbrot Set: zn+1 = zn2 + c The difference is that z0 = x +Continue reading “How to plot the Julia Set”
Plotting the Mandelbrot Set
Calcpad has an interesting and undocumented feature, that I am going to reveal in this post. You can use it to quickly plot the Mandelbrot set. This is a set of complex numbers c, for which the iterative equation zn+1 = zn2 + c does not go to infinity. The most beautiful part is thatContinue reading “Plotting the Mandelbrot Set”
Even more 3D effects
In the last version I improved the 3D plot shading and added some nice 3D effects. Bellow is the plot of the function f(x; y) = cos(x) + cos(y) + cos(xĀ·y/3)/2 + cos(ā(x2 + y2)Ā·2)/2 with the “Rainbow” color scale and the “Shadows” option on: What is new is the specular light effect (the littleContinue reading “Even more 3D effects”
Math Art with Calcpad
Most people consider math boring, but sometimes it can be really beautiful. Recently I found some unusual application of Calcpad – to draw nice pictures using math formulas. In general, you can plot functions of two variables using the $Map command: $Map{f(x;y) @ x = a : b & y = c : d} IContinue reading “Math Art with Calcpad”
Non-metric units in Calcpad
Calcpad version 3.0 already supports some non-metric units, that are commonly used in science, technology and engineering. A list of currently supported units is available inĀ Units section of the User manual. More units can be easily appended in the next version. We will appreciate your suggestions very much. You can download the latest version fromContinue reading “Non-metric units in Calcpad”
How units work?
In this post, we will take a quick look inside Calcpad and see how units actually work. But first, let’s make a brief overview of the theoretical basis. Theoretical basis There are only seven base units in the whole universe. They correspond to the seven physical dimensions: mass – kilogram (kg) length – meter (m)Continue reading “How units work?”
Calculating with units
Unit conversion is one of the most tedious jobs when doing calculations. Although not very difficult, it is repetitive and time consuming. For example, lets calculate the stress in a steel beam. Assume that span length is in meters, section dimensions are in mm, geometrical properties are in cm2 (cm3, cm4), section forces are inContinue reading “Calculating with units”
Quadratic equation – part II
In the previous post we created a simple program to solve a quadratic equation. We used the well known method from school: In this post we will make our program more professional and add some advanced features. Currently, it is fine for personal use, but if we want to give it to other users, weContinue reading “Quadratic equation – part II”
My first program – quadratic equation
Lets write our first program with Calcpad. Most programming languages usually start with “Hello world!”, but for Calcpad, there is nothing much to do, except to write the text in quotes: Then press Enter and the text will appear in the output. So, let’s do something more useful and solve a real problem. The quadraticContinue reading “My first program – quadratic equation”
Calcpad 