I recommend it to people struggling with math, that website taught me calculus way better than my TA could.
I used it in school a lot to check my work. And back then till today I use it when I need a quick answer to a difficult problem. But I always miss the satisfaction of solving the problem myself when I do.
I use it for dumb thoughts i have all the time because it can usually understand what the hell I’m asking it even if i have no prior knowledge
I haven’t used it for teaching or concepts. It is useful for some calculations as it can convert integral equations into special functions and do simplifications/unit conversions. But in my experience, you do need some background knowledge to check it if you are relying on the natural language parsing.
I use it to check if my calculations are correct.
it seems actually useful unlike an LLM and only recently discovered it. i suppose if i was doing some hard sci fiction or world building it could have a purpose for me?
Best readily available tool I know of for quickly solving potentially annoying algebra problems, or for quick unit conversions using (mostly) natural language. I graduated some time ago so not using it for class, this is just what I use it for either casually or with some of my hobbies.
speaking of learning calculus, I also recommend the “integral solver with steps” website https://www.integral-calculator.com/
i used it for math class and it was very helpful the breakdowns of how to work a problem. I think i used about .001% of the capabilities but loved what i used.
I like it, but I wish there were an open source alternative available
there are, but not in terms of usability. Closest is probably sagemath but it’s bit of a learnong curve whereas wolframalpha is pretty much ready to go or at least learn-it-while-using.
Is that the program or the website that crunches equations?
The website was very helpful in checking my work on long, complicated physics problems.
The program I had to use in a one-credit class whose name I can’t even remember, one of those where the objective is to learn how to use the program and they never teach you anything about it, just assign you problems and make you bash your head against the interpreter for three months. So my perspective, full again of a boiling rage I didn’t even remember a moment ago that I still had with me, is probably a bit skewed.
I hated those classes (we had matlab, maple and python), like I get the core idea, but all the other classes where about proofs and any exercise requiring calculations where just an illustration since the professors didnt want to waste our time crunching numbers with little educational value.
So the tools that we were taught which are meant to help crunch numbers weren’t used since the professor of other classes didn’t want to be unfair to those who didn’t know how to use them and more difficult calculations usually don’t provide additional insight anyway.
In this day and age computer software is better selftaught anyways since it’s constantly evolving, there are too many modules to teach and there is no way of knowing which ones a student would find useful, and I don’t memorize how to use them since I have to look at the docs most of the time anyway.
I would make one exception: LaTeX. But that we had to teach ourselves…
also fuck overleaf.
LaTeX absolutely fucking rules. If I had stayed in academia I would have considered a job just typesetting math textbooks in LaTeX all day. Loved it to bits.
good for checking my linear algebra homework
