Very very basic guide to CalcMe

CalcMe is an online calculator based on Javascript, so it runs on any browser and operating system, including mobile and tablet devices. CalcMe is integrated within Wiris Quizzes, enhancing the power of your math questions. CalcMe offers a powerful calculation and graphics engine covering basic and advanced mathematical needs: random number generation, polynomials, general expressions, vectors, matrices, lists, geometry, statistics, user functions, programming and many more.
Note: All examples on this page are live examples. That is, if you click one of them, it will open in CalcMe.

How does CalcMe work?

You can write mathematics, and CalcMe will perform the calculations for you.

The CalcMe sheet is divided into three main areas:


Area for Calculating
Area for Graphing
Area for Defining

Calculate

  1. Write what you would like to compute
  2. Click Calc or Enter


The default action is Calc but you can choose the most appropriate one at your convenience.

Live demos

There are several live demos on this page. If you click into the area containing the CalcMe parameters, it will open in CalcMe. Try it out, change the parameters or options. You won't break anything.

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Graph

  1. Write the equation or figure you would like to plot
  2. Click Plot action

Define

  1. Store a computation in a variable
  2. Use it later

Arithmetic


Mathematical operations in CalcMe are represented by a symbol associated with a keyboard key.

Operation Symbol Keyboard
Sum +
Substraction -
Multiplication * or ·
Division /
Square root Ctrl+.
Root Ctrl+,
Power Ctrl+↑

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You can compute the quotient and remainder of a division or factorize a number into prime factors. You can also compute the greatest common divisor or the least common multiple of a set of numbers.

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Vector and Matrix constructor

Vectors

Vector are constructed with square brackets [], and the elements are separated by commas ,.

You can sum vectors or compute their scalar product.

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Matrices

Matrices are vectors of vectors, that is, vectors whose elements are vectors. You can create matrices with two different syntaxes

As vectors, you can sum and multiply matrices (as long as their dimensions are compatible).

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Basic operations

As you have previously seen, you can work with vectors and matrices and perform basic arithmetic with them. However, you can do many more things: you can compute the cross product between two vectors, check if they are linearly independent; a matrix can be inverted or raised to a whole power, you can also compute its rank or its determinant.

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Element access

You can access a specific element of a vector using subindices, that start on 1. In the same way, you can retrieve an element of a matrix

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Polynomials and expressions


Polynomials are created with a number multiplied by a variable raised to a power.

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You can sum, multiply, divide and, for instance, find roots of polynomials.

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You can also create more complex expressions and operate with them.

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Differentiation

There are plenty of ways to compute the derivative of a function or expression.

Using a prime '
Using the symbol
Using the action
Using the command differentiate

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Integration

There are also plenty of ways to compute the integral of a function or expression.

Using the symbol
Using the action
Using the command integrate

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Limit

It is possible to compute the limit of a function or expression. Moreover, you can also take one-sided limits.

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Taylor expansion

You can compute the Taylor series of a real function at a given point. If you are interested in the terms up to some order, you can cut the series too.

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Series

You can determine whether a series is convergent, as well as calculating the sum of a convergent series in most cases.

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Geometry


CalcMe allows us to deal with geometrical figures such points, lines, planes and conic sections. You can also create polygons and polyhedra, both in 2D and 3D. It is also possible to compute the distance between figures, the angle they form or the symmetry with respect to an object.

Points, lines and planes

It is possible to work in 2 or 3 dimensions. To create points you simply define its components.

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Given two points or a point and a vector, you can construct a line.

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In a similar way, you can, for instance, construct a plane given three points.

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Figures

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Solving

Equations

It is possible to solve an equation or a system of equations exactly.

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You can also use a numerical method to solve more complicated equations.

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You can also use a numerical method to solve more complicated equations.

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Inequations

It is also possible to find the solution to an inequation.

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Statistics


There are a lot of functions useful for statistical calculations such as mean, quantile, quartile, etc. You can see the complete list here.

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Probability


The most common probability distributions are also available. Analytical expressions for density and distribution functions are also available if possible.

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Combinatorics


Combinations, permutations or variations of a set of numbers can be calculated. Be careful, though: results are very large.

Counting Symbol
Variations or k-permutations of n
Permutations
Combinations
Variations with repetition or n-tuples of m-sets
Permutations with repetition
Combinations with repetition
Binomial coefficient
Factorial
You can also write ! with the keyboard.

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Units and currencies


You can work with units, convert one into another (if it makes sense) and do basic operations with them. Units need to be introduced via the symbols available under the Units of measure tab. Discover more about the units or prefixes you can use here.

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Currencies are similar to units but you cannot convert one into another. Check all the available currencies here.

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Randomness


The random function in CalcMe is adaptable to many cases of use. For example, you will see how to remove the "0" from a random selection. The normal command would be like:

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By default, this includes all of the numbers between -10 and 10. If given the requirements of the question, the number 0 needs to be excluded from the set, you can remove it with one simple instruction (the slash / should be used through the Logic and sets tab):

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You have to add brackets around the first list for this to work. This can, of course, work equally for any other number you need to exclude other than zero:

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The above would produce a random number between -10 and 10, except the number 8. You can even do this with more than one number:

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This would remove 8,-8, and 0 from the selection. As you can see, there are many more options when creating a random variable.

So far you have retrieved integer numbers but you can also work with real numbers

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Moreover, these random variables can also be selected from a concrete set of values or words. In the following section, you will see with more details on how to create this kind of sets.

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Creating lists via comprehension


This section is a short guide to creating lists in CalcMe, using the commands with and where. This method of defining lists is based on the common mathematical notation of "set comprehension" or "set-builder notation", for instance:

open curly brackets left parenthesis x comma y right parenthesis element of straight real numbers squared ∣ x greater or equal than 0 comma y greater or equal than 0 close curly brackets

We will explain the commands through the following examples.

Example 1

In the most basic level, with simply provides a more compact form of writing long lists. You can write

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or you could greatly simplify it to the following:

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The command where comes in handy when you would like to have additional restrictions. For example, retrieve the even numbers only:

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Alternatively, you could, of course, have done this:

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Example 2

In the first example, the size of the list was fixed. However, comprehension is especially useful when defining lists of variable size. Here, for example, is a list with random elements, of random size

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As you may have noticed, the first expression does not explicitly depend on i. You can think of i as just a counter within a specified range. Then, you may or may not use it to define the list elements. It can also be any variable name you choose, as in the following:

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Example 3

The list comprehension notation can also be extended to more than one variable. In that case, you should specify the range for each variable used as a counter. For example, here is a list with all positive proper fractions in simplest terms, with single digit numerator and denominator:

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Another recommendation illustrated in the above example is enclosing each condition after where in parentheses if you have more than one joined by logical and comma logical or.

Example 4

Finally, note that the range for the counter variable can itself be a list, defined previously.

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Example 5

It is also possible to create matrices using this notation. For instance, creating a 4 cross times 3 matrix with random coefficients is as simple as this:

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Programming


You can use some programming functions. You can see the basic ones here. For example, given a list created as described before, you can easily compute the square of the first primes.

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User functions


You can create custom functions. The random command is very useful but it could be a bit tedious to write every time random(-10,10). Instead, you can create a function that generates a random number when called:

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This eases the creation of a matrix with random coefficients. Another more elaborated example is creating a function that constructs a tri-diagonal matrix given three numbers. Therefore, every time you would like to create a tri-diagonal matrix, you just need to call this function with the upper-diagonal, diagonal and lower-diagonal terms you would like the matrix to have.

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