Comments on: Calculators that do what you want

By: jz

jz — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:04:43 +0000

Python rocks – should we pool resources/build a library?

PS Also not quite what you want, but for completeness (and commission-free) – http://www.icosmo.org

By: Chris_C

Chris_C — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:35:04 +0000

If you type into a Google search bar
2.3 * mass of sun * c^2
it responds
2.3 * mass of the sun * (the speed of light^2) = 4.11136995 × 10^47 joules

Chris

By: andyxl

andyxl — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:14:23 +0000

Steve : if only I had the cash so I could test IDL and see what you mean. Definitely going to try out the Firefox things – didn’t know about these.

Update : yup, Statusbar Scientific calculator is really good. Graphing calculator add-on is also pretty good. But the one I like the idea of best is the add-on that calculates how much time you have wasted on Facebook.

By: Stephen Serjeant

Stephen Serjeant — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:28:19 +0000

I don’t want to get the reputation as an IDL evangelist but it’s very easy to set up IDL to do this. I have a constants definition file that I call up and I also wrote a cosmology toolkit for comoving distances, Einstein radii etc. It’s command-line driven, remembers variables and previous commands, and seems to do what you’re asking for. I’d be happy to pass my astro code on if you want it. IDL ain’t cheap, but you get what you pay for.

As Dave mentioned, HIPE (the Herschel jython-based analysis package) will probably do similar things with built-in astro functions – if you can stand having a gazillion Gb download for a beta version.

There are Firefox calculator add-ons that can store useful astro constants if you’re prepared to write a constants definition file. My favourite is Statusbar Scientific Calculator. This one doesn’t remember past commands though.

By: Simon R

Simon R — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:16:34 +0000

I use the calculator feature of Google often. The big problem (besides the lack of documentation) is that you can’t carry on from one calculation to the next. You can’t even copy an answer back in to the search box. Wolfram Alpha seems to have sorted this out, but you wonder why Google don’t develop their calculator more, to be really useful…

By: Conor

Conor — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:15:03 +0000

As already mentioned (twice!) wolfram alpha is very good for this sort of thing, but it also permits you to do some truly obscure searches and calculations. Wanted to know the nutritional value of the moon if it were made of cheese?

http://www96.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=lunar mass cheese

It even helpfully tells you that you can specify the particular type of cheese you wish to use.

Slightly more interesting:
http://www96.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=GDP+of+UK+%2F+workforce+of+UK

Apparently you can put a price on life.

By: Anthony Smith

Anthony Smith — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:19:08 +0000

ipython -p sh gives a system shell and a Python shell all in one. Not perfect, but dead convenient.

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:54:23 +0000

Any of you out there involved in Herschel will soon be getting used to the HIPE interface which provides a GUI front end to Python (well, Jython).

Despite my earlier worries about the system it doesn’t do too badly especially for this point in the mission.

By: Ross Collins

Ross Collins — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:29:13 +0000

…and for some more imaginative units for your Wolfram Alpha search results, possible useful for press releases:

http://www.sensibleunits.com/

By: Ross Collins

Ross Collins — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:20:02 +0000

Forgot to mention you need to point the PYTHONSTARTUP environment variable to the “.pythonrc” file too if it’s not already set.

You can also have your interactive Python command history saved between sessions using the “.pythonrc”, see:

http://docs.python.org/dev/tutorial/interactive.html