HP Forums

How can the μ symbol in the Prime be used in Home view?

In the Casio calculator referred to in this thread there is a screenshot from a video where μ is interpreted as 10ᴇ−6 and Dave seems quite excited about the usefulness of that, for electronic circuit calculation purposes. I am aware that this symbol can mean many things not just the SI prefix micro-, which represents one millionth, or 10−6.

So perhaps that is the answer, that the Prime doesn't attach any meaning to this symbol. Thus when I try anything with μ in Home view I get a syntax error. E.g. μ or 6μ or 6*μ though I do seem to be able to enter these expressions in CAS view.

To further complicate the issue, let look at unit conversions. Under Units/Prefixes there is another μ except it has a smaller, lighter font? And when I type 1_(µ) I also get a syntax error whereas I can type 1_(cm) on a line by itself and not get an error.

The micro unit prefix is used like all the other unit prefixes; just stick it in front of (almost) any unit, and Prime will understand that you intend the unit to be divided by 10^6.

The μ character by itself has no other built-in meaning in Prime. It is not a function or system variable or anything like that. If you want to use μ as a variable, just store something into it. Prime lets you do that.

Ah thanks Joe, I see.

Here is another example, converting between metres and mm, which helps me understand it.

Yes, what casio has done is make a "unitless prefix". They've never really done actual units. HP has always been far and above the rest with support for units and standard prefixes and similar. Thats why you can directly do things like 9.8_(mm/ms^2) and have it work and correctly handle all the conversions.

Now I DO see a potential desire to let people directly type in on of those prefixes and have it work as an equivalent 1E-6 for example. I just want to be careful how I implement it to make it as useful as possible and not just a "match exactly what the cheap casio scientifics do".