Re: Showing intermediate steps in calculations
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg29051] Re: [mg29019] Showing intermediate steps in calculations
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <andrzej at tuins.ac.jp>
- Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 21:53:43 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
I think you need a program especially designed for teaching or self learning, which Mathematica is not. Firstly what you call "intermediate steps" are usually written in C an compiled, which makes their execution much faster and there is no way you can get them without access to the source code. But any case, the "intermediate" steps in a computer computation may been entirely different from the "intermediate" steps a human being would (or should) take. They would be of more interest in someone interested in computer algebra programs than in algebra. In fact human beings are still on the whole much smarter than computers and learning to do solve mathematical problems the way a computer would do it is unlikely to improve ones mathematical knowledge or skills. Andrzej Kozlowski -- Andrzej Kozlowski Toyama International University JAPAN http://platon.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/andrzej/ http://sigma.tuins.ac.jp/~andrzej/ on 01.5.25 2:47 PM, Maarten D. de Jong at pleez.dont at rely.on.this.address wrote: > I am writing this message on behalf of my father, who is having the following > problem. He's working through various high-school and undergraduate books > on algebra and calculus (out of fun and interest) and he meticulously > writes down the answers to each problem he solves. He would like to do this > on his computer, but after a bit of discussion, I discovered that any of > the main symbolic math packages available do not solve his problem entirely. > As far as I know, these programs take in the problem, and write out the > answer, without showing intermediate steps and simplifications---and it is > precisely this that my father wants to know about. Are there packages which > show these steps? Or is it just a matter of turning on an option in the > mainstream programs? > > Thanks for any help you can offer, > Maarten > >