Compras Nikon Bluetooth |
College is tough on equipment, so high build quality of a calculator is a must. I'm used to a TI-86 (which is built like a tank), so the extremely light EL-506v is quite a change. However, the build appears plenty solid. The calculator is gray on the front, with a dark blue back and a dark blue translucent cover which snaps on nicely. The buttons are translucent as well, with the number and main function keys dark blue and the secondary keys white (the on key is also pink, and the secondary function key is yellow). There are slightly fewer keys than on TI's comperable model, but every button has several contextual functions. The display is quite nice. There are two lines, a large numerical one where data is input (with a small section dedicated to exponential notation) and a smaller one on top which shows you the entire equation you're working on. The screen has great contrast, and is large enough to be easily read. The keys have little travel and feel slightly floaty, but nothing that would suggest cheapness.
The EL-506v claims to posess 330 functions, and I believe it. I count 37 keys (besides the d-pad, which allows you to edit your current equation or cycle through old ones), and all posess a 2nd-key function and most have a third contextual function. There are all the things one would expect from a scientific calculator, and some you wouldn't. Most notable are a whole series of 44 unit conversions (technically; though half are simply the same conversion the other direction). Everything's there: mass, volume, area and more. There's also 40 physical constants. Both of these abilities are accessed through pushing a key and entering a reference number for the conversion/constant you want; the ref. numbers are printed on a two-sided card held in the calc's slide cover. I'm very pleased with the abilities of this calc, many of which I thought were confined to the realm of graphing units. Also, one last interesting ability is the so-called "advanced DAL" (Direct Algebraic Logic) input method, which allows you to type in equations just as they appear in textbooks. This makes things much simpler, since you needn't learn all types of esoteric entry methods for complex equations.
So, the lesson is this: if you need a convenient, small, thorough pocket scientific calculator, pick up one of these. You won't likely regret it.
FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #4
A: Go west, young man, go west!
Q: What do wabbits do when they get tiwed of wunning awound?
There was a mad scientist (a mad... social... scientist) who kidnapped
three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked
each of them in seperate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no
can opener.
A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's
cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from
pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,
and escaped.
The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids
off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good
pitching arm and a new quantum theory.
The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising
solution to the kissing problem; his dessicated corpse was propped calmly
against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor:
Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die.
Proof: assume the opposite...
