![]() ![]() Teachers worry that these students are neither using nor developing a feel, an instinct, for numbers. Most have also watched students make obvious errors as they pushed calculator buttons. Almost all physics teachers have anecdotal stories of watching students reach for a calculator to do simple operations like halving a number or multiplying by one hundred. Whereas calculators were once limited to numeric operations like evaluating the cube root of fortytwo, 3 + x to 27 27 9 2 3 + + + x x x, Automated calculation, even when it is strictly numerical instead of symbolic, makes many teachers wary. Personal computer programs such as Mathematica, Maple, and even handheld calculators are now widely capable of symbolic manipulation. We model Mathematica’s influence as an integral part of the constant feedback that occurs in Recent advances in computers and programming have given today’s physics students a new tool. Their reasoning is drawn into local attractors where they look to calculation schemes to resolve questions instead of, for example, mapping the mathematics to the physical system at hand. These students still engage in powerful mathematical reasoning while they calculate but struggle because of the narrowed breadth of their thinking. This paper presents examples from the work of upper level physics majors where Mathematica plays an active role in focusing and sustaining their thought around calculation. It does not merely offer a convenient way to perform the computations students would have otherwise wanted to do by hand. The presence of such a powerful calculator can couple strongly to the type of mathematical reasoning students employ. Symbolic calculators like Mathematica are becoming more commonplace among upper level physics students. Symbolic Manipulators Affect Mathematical Mindsets Finance, Statistics & Business Analysisįor the newest resources, visit Wolfram Repositories and Archives ».Wolfram Knowledgebase Curated computable knowledge powering Wolfram|Alpha. Wolfram Universal Deployment System Instant deployment across cloud, desktop, mobile, and more. Wolfram Data Framework Semantic framework for real-world data. ![]()
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