Protean Calculator

Abstract

This app is both a calculator and a number convertor. I designed it principally as an exercise to help me conceive a pedagogical assignment to teach students the art of programming a LiveCode app in a course on "Coding Humanities/Social Sciences Apps in English." Teaching students how to develop a simple calculator is an efficient way of making them learn basic techniques. Developing this app made me discover swaths of the LiveCode lexicon that were new to me. I proceeded to learn them extensively to widen my competency. The result is this app, " Protean Calculator ," which does many things besides the ordinary arithmetical operations in its basic view. • It can be used as a scientific calculator well versed in all trigonometrical functions, both regular and hyperbolic, along with logarithms, roots, and exponents. • It calculates values using several number series functions: Fibonacci, Tribonacci, Pell, Lucas, Bell, Padovan, Pentagonal, Hexagonal, Catalan, and LazyCaterer. • I can identiy prime numbers up to 14-digits long. • It can factorize any number, identify its prime factors, provide the prime factor formula attached to any non-prime number, sum proper divisors, and evaluate the related number attributes (aliquot part, digital root, additive persistence). • It facilitates E-exponentiation . •It helps users calculate compound interests. • It can convert numbers from one unit to another (and back) regarding units of length, area, angle, time, speed, temperature, energy, force, power, pressure, volume, weight, mass, and even fuel consumption. The range of units provided for each type of measurement is unusually large. • It also c onverts nearly all international currencies into one another (via the Internet). • It can convert decimal numbers into their nearest or exact fraction according to preset decimal-place numbers. It converts them one at a time or in a continuous incremental range. • It finds the roots of quadratic equations , real or imaginary, and presents them in decimal, fractional, and parabolic forms. It can do so one specific equation at a time or at once across a continuous incremental (even decimal) range of decimal places, x values, or coefficients a, b, c. • It finds the roots of cubic equations , real or imaginary, and presents them in decimal, fractional, and cubic-curve forms. It can do so one specific equation at a time or across a continuous incremental range of decimal places, x values, or any of the four coefficients a, b, c, d. This is handy when seeking to identify the roots of a series of cubic equations and finding which ones have non-imaginary solutions. • Finally, it finds the roots of quartic equations , real or imaginary, and presents them in decimal, fractional, and quartic-curve forms. It can do so one specific equation at a time or across a continuous incremental range of decimal places, x values, or any of the five coefficients a, b, c, d, e. The calculator provides five sets of memories (each open to six operations) instead of the usual unique one open to only two operations. The three printable and archivable tape ribbon s are interactive: clicking any recorded number brings it back into calculating or converting action. This vastly helps entering numbers. Plenty of data descriptions and recordings are logged in the tapes automatically. Their contents can be copied and printed. The number of decimal places can be set and reset everywhere to reach different levels of precision. Resetting decimal places automatically redoes current calculations. Users can also reset decimal separators (2 types) and thousands separators (5 types).