Using a scientific calculator

Introduction

The course describes some of the main features of a scientific calculator and encourages you to use your calculator, both for everyday arithmetic and for more complicated calculations that use the function keys as well. Key sequences, which describe which keys to press, are included in all the activities, so you can try out the ideas straightaway.

Due to the wide range of scientific calculators available, for the purposes of this course we will be concentrating on the Casio fx-83ES model. Other calculators may function differently to the methods described within this course.

This calculator is used on the Open University courses Starting with maths (Y182) [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] and Discovering mathematics (MU123), but would also be useful for many other courses requiring the use of a scientific calculator.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course MU123 Discovering Mathematics.