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Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

insect.sh

191–200 of 205 posts

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#191
post #36
post #7

I like this, but would really like a convert-to-base-units function. ≫ sqrt(1/(eps0 mu0)) ->m/s sqrt(1 / (eps0 × mu0)) -> m / s = 299833000 m/s ≫ sqrt(mu0/eps0) ->ohm sqrt(mu0 / eps0) -> Ω = 377.031 Ω

Thank you for the feedback! I'm open for any syntax suggestions.

Maybe something like SI(sqrt(1/(eps0 mu0))) = 299792458 m/s factor(sqrt(mu0/eps0),ohm) = SI(sqrt(mu0/eps0)/ohm)*ohm = 376.730 Ω

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#192
post #182

Nice, but sin (30 rad) sin × 30 rad Unknown identifier: sin Wouldn't it be great if software evaluated things, and if things didn't made sense, considered what the possible alternatives were, a bit like semantic checkers for spelling and grammar in text?

sin(30 rad) = -0.988032

I think you've missed my point. I'm saying that it would be nice if interactive tools were a bit smarter and could guess that the white space was unwanted. Syntax checking in editors has improved a lot but it should do more than just suggest long variable names as you're typing them.

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#193
post #84

> high precision ≫ e*1e15 e × 1000000000000000 = 2718280000000000 Needs a bit of work, I think.

Indeed:

    >>> tan(90 deg)

      tan(90°)

       = 14444300000000000

    >>> tan(pi/2)

      tan(pi / 2)

       = -70710700000000000000

    >>> tan(180 deg)

      tan(180°)

       = -1.38463e-16
tan(90°) and tan(π/2) should both be undefined, but in Insect, they a) have a value and b) are not even equal.

Weirdly enough, cos(π) and cos(2π) are exactly -1 and 1.

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#194
post #162
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd call them "MB (megabytes)" and "MMB" (marketing megabytes). Pretty clear.

"M" - "Mega" is an official general purpose SI prefix approved in 1960 which always stood for a decimal multiplier. Its common usage as a binary multiplier was limited to counting units of computer memory, and is purely an approximation to allow convenient speaking of, e.g., a megabyte of RAM instead of 1.048576 megabytes of RAM. Because it reflects the natural scale of physical memory. It is more properly referred t…

Just a small correction: the abbreviated form of mebibyte is MiB.

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#195
post #194
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"M" - "Mega" is an official general purpose SI prefix approved in 1960 which always stood for a decimal multiplier. Its common usage as a binary multiplier was limited to counting units of computer memory, and is purely an approximation to allow convenient speaking of, e.g., a megabyte of RAM instead of 1.048576 megabytes of RAM. Because it reflects the natural scale of physical memory. It is more properly referred t…

Just a small correction: the abbreviated form of mebibyte is MiB.

Thanks!

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#196
post #98

hmmm, I'm a little bit skeptical about this. I'd be cool to have this as a python script somewhere but I am not quite sure wether I would visit this site whenever I need to calculate some physical units, especially since google already covers most of my needs dont get me wrong, I think otherwise it looks and feels great and is easy to use but I dont know who will use this.

There's a good python library to work with units: it's called Pint (named after a certain quantity of beer). Afaik it does everything OP does, and more and better.

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#197
Interesting.

And it looks useful.

Unfortunately that means you will be inundated with requests for further improvements. :-)

I see that you have a built in constant for μ0, mu0.

But it evaluates to

    0.00000125664 N/A²
for the ultimate in precision surely it should be expressed as

    4π×10−7 N/A²
At least when I use mu0 in spreadsheets, etc., I always define it that way, easier to remember too. And sometimes it lets me see that the pi cancels out.

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#198
Please everyone in the US (and everywhere else) stop using the word imperial to describe the US Customary system of units.

The Imperial system uses the same names for many units but the sizes of several important ones are different.

For instance Insect says:

≫ 1 gal/1litre 1 gal / 1 L = 3.78541

If this gallon were really Imperial then it would say.

≫ 1 gal/1litre 1 gal / 1 L = 4.54609

This is mostly because 1 pint US is 16 fluid ounce US but 1 pint imperial is 20 fluid ounce imperial.

But be careful because 1 fluid ounce imperial is 28.4131 ml, whereas 1 fluid ounce US is 29.5735 ml.

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#199
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's great at unit conversions. You can do things like "number of milliseconds between amsterdam and paris at speed of sound". I use it all the time.

Your query doesn't exactly work though, it's interpreted as "paris at speed of sound". However "time between amsterdam and paris at the speed of sound in milliseconds" does work, returning 1.26*10^6 ms.

(shame smiley) I could've tested the query, but I wrote it on mobile.

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#200
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your query doesn't exactly work though, it's interpreted as "paris at speed of sound". However "time between amsterdam and paris at the speed of sound in milliseconds" does work, returning 1.26*10^6 ms.

(shame smiley) I could've tested the query, but I wrote it on mobile.

Hahah, I was also on mobile. The mobile website of Wolfram Alpha works pretty good, they also have an app but haven't tried it yet.
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