A Mathematical Search Engine?

There has been a fair bit of buzz about Wolfram Alpha and even comparisons to Google, but I don't think I really started to get it until I saw Maria H. Andersen's Picasa Web Album via Teaching College Mathematics.

Now the wheels are turning. How is Math education going to change with tools like these available to students? CAS tells students answers, this tells students questions.

Online and Free Calculators and CASs

I made a couple of minor edits to my Wiki page about online basic calculators, scientific calculators, graphing calculators, CAS systems, and plotting utilities today.

It still blows me away how much is available online and how good the quality is. Yacas (yet another CAS) has a tab called My Yacas that provides quick access to the list of commands and to the actual CAS engine - no download required.

Now, if only math students had the kind of access to computers and the internet that would allow them to use these tools routinely in school.

Update: Don't miss the link above to the actual page listing online calculators, CASs, graphing utilities etc.

Yet Another Computer Algebra System

I have been exploring Yacas for a little while now. It is extremely powerful and is free. Students can download it or run it directly from its web site. There is an interactive tutorial available from the main set of tabs.

On the related links page, there is a link to mavscript, which uses yacas to perform calculations directly in text or OpenOffice Text documents. Maybe I am a geek, but being able to differentiate, graph and factor directly inside a text document warmed a cockle in my heart!