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HP Forum Archive 13

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Teaching with a 32SII and a new RPN user (hopefully)
Message #1 Posted by Juan J on 18 Oct 2003, 6:10 p.m.

After a busy week, finally I got some time to write about this. It was encouraging for me.

I got a part-time job teaching Physical Chemistry to engineering students at a local college. Last Wednesday, after a laboratory session, we were discussing error analysis and how to fit curves using experiment data. While discussing how to calculate averages and standard deviation using a calculator (it might be the exception rather than the rule, but most college freshmen don’t really read their calculators’ user manuals) when one of the students pulled out an HP 32SII with the stat menu on screen. “How can I do with my calculator?” he asked. I have seen a few 48s and 49s on campus but not in my class and had given up on trying to find one. “Can I use it to show you and everyone?” I asked.

With the 32SII I managed to explain how to calculate averages and other statistics, and how to fit data. Surprisingly, the 32’s menu system proved to be quite good for the job of explaining how to find a function and use it with your data, and when I noticed I was working some examples using it while the class listened and gave their calculators a try. Function names as shown on screen turned out to be useful to explain some concepts. Then I noticed that other manufacturers have mimicked HP’s menu system on their products, and that the 32SII had became a teaching aid. They all had understood what to do with their data and how to do it on their calculators. Finally we discussed about the examinations that rule out most calculators but not the 32. It felt good but it wasn’t the end of it.

The 32SII’s owner was amazed at the power of his machine. After finishing the class, when I gave him his calculator back, he told me that he got it from his father, a retired engineer who received it as a gift (how many of us would like such a gift) with no manual. His father himself had a 41C with some peripherals and had found the 32 of little interest. The kid had managed to learn about RPN and the stack but did not know how to work through complex expressions without using parentheses, among other things. I had to recall the Mach number equation from memory (by that time we were sitting on the grass below a tree) and explained about the four-level stack and how to start from the inside out. The benefit of knowing intermediate answers showed by itself. “This expression would need a lot of parentheses if entered in another calculator,” was all he managed to say, adding later “but on the HP it is much easier to solve.”

Then came the next question, “how can I integrate a function?” After making it clear that the 32SII does numerical integration only, we discussed the integral of cos(x) between 1 and 2. The kid understood easily how to enter a function in program memory and then integrate it; later he checked it doing the integral by hand. He didn’t believe his eyes. As most of us did when numerical integration was not standard on calculators.

The next day he approached to me to ask some more things and comment on the 32’s functions. And he had confirmed that his dad’s machine was 41C. “The best scientific calculator family ever made, the 41 series,” I said, mentioning how the 41 had been used on the Space Shuttle when there were no laptops as a backup for the main computer. He found it interesting and said he will get his dad’s 41 to see what it can do. Hopefully he will start to use it. But for the moment he’s been “converted” to RPN. I was happy.

It felt good to see that RPN does not scare users as most marketing experts and similar fauna are inclined to say. And it was encouraging to see the same emotions when discovering it in a college freshman of today that I (and most other users and Forum contributors) felt back when I was his age. I was also amazed that the 32SII could be so fine a teaching aid.

      
Re: Teaching with a 32SII and a new RPN user (hopefully)
Message #2 Posted by GS Leong on 19 Oct 2003, 11:07 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by Juan J

That is a beatiful thing and I feel that the only way RPN will survive is by passing it to future gererations by repected peers (i. e. father,professor et al) the problem I see is that hp refuses to make a quality machine of even the caliber of the 32 SII. So there are very limited resources to pass. And as we can all see on ebay the prices reflect this shortage. So hp is really not helping the cause but I guess that all that read this forum know that already

my $.02 worth

            
Not at all
Message #3 Posted by Valentin Albillo on 20 Oct 2003, 6:02 a.m.,
in response to message #2 by GS Leong

GS Leong wrote:

"I feel that the only way RPN will survive is by passing it to future gererations by repected peers (i. e. father,professor et al)"

RPN will only survive for future generations as a gimmicky, purely intellectual, miscellaneous notation to compute mathematical expressions in a weird way, never as a mainstream method.

People aren't fools in general, despite what we RPN addicts may think (i.e: "we are right and they are wrong"), and will always select the easiest, most natural, prominent and accepted way to do calculations, and that's algebraic, mind you. RPN was Ok only when RAM was scarce and expensive and every register or memory resource would greatly add to the price. Now that's not the case and RPN is utterly obsolete, and economically unappealing so it's no great surprise that neither HP nor anyone else cares about it anymore.

By teaching childs to learn and use RPN you will only succeed in alienating their minds, and create constant frustration when they see that noone does or explains things like this neither in class nor in real life, no RPN calculators are easily available, and the ones which are can't compete in quality, features and price with the ones their pals do own.

I suggest you teach RPN to your childs as some sort of intellectual "game", if at all, a mere curio, but making a strong point that they are comfortable and can use proficiently algebraic systems, mainly. Otherwise you'll be doing a serious disservice to your children's education and future math capabilities.

Best regards from V.

                  
Oh, it might just surprise you.
Message #4 Posted by Jim Chumbley on 20 Oct 2003, 9:31 p.m.,
in response to message #3 by Valentin Albillo

Mr. Albillo said, "no RPN calculators are easily available, and the ones which are can't compete in quality, features and price with the ones their pals do own." Sir, I am looking at my brand new HP-49g+ while I'm composing this response. Let me just say that I'll bet you have not yet been able to see and hold a 49g+ or try any of its built-in 2,700 operations.

                        
Re: Oh, it might just surprise you.
Message #5 Posted by Valentin Albillo on 21 Oct 2003, 4:10 a.m.,
in response to message #4 by Jim Chumbley

Jim Chumbley posted:

"Let me just say that I'll bet you have not yet been able to see and hold a 49g+ or try any of its built-in 2,700 operations."

:-)

You'll lose the bet hands down.

I've had a 49g+ "in my hands" *weeks* (if not months) before you even saw one :-)

Best regards from V.

                              
Re: Oh, it might just surprise you.
Message #6 Posted by Veli-Pekka Nousiainen on 21 Oct 2003, 5:56 a.m.,
in response to message #5 by Valentin Albillo

Since August 2003...

                                    
Oh, it might just surprise me.
Message #7 Posted by Jim Chumbley on 22 Oct 2003, 12:23 a.m.,
in response to message #6 by Veli-Pekka Nousiainen

As I was about to say, I never bet against a sure thing or a man who is holding all five aces! What I was hoping was that Valentin had not had an opportunity to compare the 49g+'s hardware/software with the big dogs in the neighborhood. It makes me sad to realize that he thinks the 49g+ "can't compete in quality, features and price" with TI's 89 and Voyage 200. I am reminded of a song from the 1960's: "Teach your children well. No one can tell what they might grow like. Feed them on your dreams . . ." At least Mrs. Susan Marie (Chumbley) Rook, now age 34 and with two handsome sons, still uses her HP-15C from college. Even to add up a grocery bill.

                                          
Re: Oh, it might just surprise me.
Message #8 Posted by bill platt (les Estats Unis d'Amerique) on 22 Oct 2003, 3:03 p.m.,
in response to message #7 by Jim Chumbley

Hi Jim,

My wife still uses her Sharp Elsimate from high school (age 37)--but she was a theatre major so she is forgiven;^)

                                                
Re: Oh, it might just surprise me.
Message #9 Posted by Jim Chumbley on 22 Oct 2003, 11:10 p.m.,
in response to message #8 by bill platt (les Estats Unis d'Amerique)

I know the feeling. After earning a BS in Mechanical Engineering, which is bad enough, I finished an MA in English Literature. But don't tell a soul. Maybe they'll still let me play.

Edited: 22 Oct 2003, 11:13 p.m.

      
Re: Teaching with a 32SII and a new RPN user (hopefully)
Message #10 Posted by Arnaud Amiel on 24 Oct 2003, 2:03 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by Juan J

I have a PDF manual for the 32SII, I believe I downloaded it from amazon but I am not sure. If you want I can try to email it to you, it is 2.5Mb so I am not sure my or your mail can cope with it. I can also put it for download on my web site. Let me know at aamiel at hotmail with a subject that makes it obvious it is hp related and not SPAM

Arnaud

            
Re: Teaching with a 32SII and a new RPN user (hopefully)
Message #11 Posted by Jordi Hidalgo on 24 Oct 2003, 12:52 p.m.,
in response to message #10 by Arnaud Amiel

Hi Arnaud, here it is.


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