Visual Calculator™ has a simple, clean interface by design, but its capabilities include many typical uses of a scientific calculator. To take advantage of the additional features, simply type them into the input box, or copy and paste a valid expression. To evaluate the expression, click the = button or type the Enter key.
| 5:59 | Time Calculations |
| 2(13) | Implicit Multiplication |
| 3^2 | Exponents |
| 4^(1/2) | Square Roots |
| sin(pi/2) | Trig. Functions |
| arctan(-1) | Inverse Trig. Functions |
| log(10) | Logarithm Function |
| ln(e^1) | Natural Logarithm Function |
| 6.626e-34 | Scientific Notation |
| 4 by 5 | Natural Language Operators |
One of the most unique and convenient features of Visual Calculator™ is its ability to calculate with quantities of time.
Numbers in time format are assumed to be either in h:m:s or m:s form. However, if you don't require seconds in your calculations, m:s form may be thought of as h:m as there is no significant difference. Also, it is unnecessary to enter a number in every field of the format. The following time quantities are all allowed and equivalent:
As an example of how time calculations can be useful, consider how you might determine how many billable hours you worked on a task. If you worked on the task from 7:48 to 9:13 and from 10:29 to 11:57, you could enter in the following calculations:
Then, if you need the final answer in terms of hours, you can simply divide the result by 1 hour.
In Visual Calculator™, you may write multiplication operations involving parenthetical expressions in a natural, mathematical form, where the operator is omitted.
To indicate the exponent for a number or expression use the ^ (Shift-6) key.
As you can see, exponentiation is evaluated in a right-to-left fashion. Currently, Visual Calculator™ does not have a built in tetration operator, but this is a planned feature.
Unlike other software calculators you may have used, Visual Calculator™ does not have a sqrt() function. Instead, a square root should be expressed in its true mathematical form as the fractional exponent ^(1/2) or ^.5.
Similarly, a cube root may be expressed as the fractional exponent ^(1/3).
In general, an expression in the form a^(1/n) may be thought of as taking the n-th root of a.
Note: In some cases, a negative base with a fractional exponent will yield a complex number, which is beyond the current abilities of Visual Calculator™. When this happens, it will return NAN - Not A (real) Number.
Instead of using the commonly known 3.14 for pi, you may simply type 'pi' for a more accurate result (currently 12-digit presicion). As an added benefit, your expressions will be more readable in this form. Likewise, the constant e, which is commonly approximated as 2.718, may be written e^1. An exponent must be used with the constant e, in order to differentiate it from the e used in scientific notation.
Visual Calculator™ supports the standard trigonometric functions sine, cosine, tangent, and their functional inverses, arcsine, arccosine, and arctangent. The standard functions take as an argument the angle in radians and return the given trigonometric ratio. The inverse functions take as an argument the corresponding trigonometric ratio and return the angle in radians. As Visual Calculator™ does not yet support units of measure, all angles are assumed to be measured in radians. However, conversion from radians to degrees is a simple matter as 360 degrees is equivalent to 2 * pi radians.
Notice in the last example that the functional inverse arctan did not return the same angle. This is due to the mathematical nature of these functions, and is standard behavior for calculators. This is a common point of confusion with the inverse trigonometric functions. Care must be taken when interpreting the results of calculations that involve the inverse functions due to their different ranges. Remember, the trigonometric functions are periodic in nature, which means that for each value of y, there are infinitely many values of x. Subsequently, when using their functional inverses, each value of x has infinitely many values of y, and so it is mathematically inherent that using the functions in the form arcsin(sin(x)) will in some cases yield a different value than x. In other words, using the inverse functions in this way will often 'crop' the result to fit a different range. To fully understand why this happens, it is best to study the function graphs and mentally plot a few key points. For reference, see the following articles:
Visual Calculator™ will soon support the complementary functions cosecant, secant, cotangent and their functional inverses, but in the mean time, you may use the following trigonometric identities in their place.
Visual Calculator™ provides both a log base 10 function and the natural logarithm function.
When notating very large or very small numbers, it is common practice to use scientific notation, which specifies the significant digits and the order of magnitude. When using a calculator, the standard method for specifying the order of magnitude is with the 'EE' button. In Visual Calculator™ type a single upper or lower-case 'e' between the significand and the exponent to achieve the same effect.
For English-speaking visitors, Visual Calculator™ understands many of the words in common usage that imply a mathematical operation. (Multilingual content & operators are long-term objectives of the Visual Calculator™ team.)
One area in which common usage is particularly inconsistent, however, is in the varied mathematical implications of the word 'of'. This inconsistency is especially common in sports. People will often say, "he made 9 of 15," when what they mean is "he made 9 in 15." It's obvious this is true, when you fill in the missing details. "He made 9 baskets of 15 attempts," evokes imagery of basketweaving, not basketball; and the implied, but incorrect operation is 9 * 15 = 135. Whereas, "he made 9 baskets in 15 attempts," communicates the desired statistic: 9 / 15 = 0.6 = 60%.