Google calculator - handy, but not always correct

Have you ever played with Google's nifty calculator?

Just go to Google and type something like the following into the search field:

4 + 5

The answer will come back at the top of the search results.

What else can it do? Well, lots, actually.

Try these:

• Raise to a power - Example: 5^2
• Square root - Example: sqrt(34.7)
• Trigonometric functions - Example: sin(3pi/4) [It assumes the angle is in radians]
• Counting (in the study of probability) - Example: If you need to know the number of ways 5 objects can be chosen from 14 objects, put: 14 choose 5

There are more examples and information here: Calculator.

BTW, you may not need to actually go to the site. If you have Google selected as the search in Firefox, the answer will appear as a "suggestion" and you don't even need to leave your current page:

Large Numbers and Calculators

Most hand-held calculators are limited when it comes to large numbers. This is a problem if you want to find the factorial of some large-ish number. For example, an old 8-digit calculator I have here can go up to 69! only (the answer is 1.71122 × 10⁹⁸). [This answer is almost equal to the number "googol" (10¹⁰⁰), which was the number that inspired the companies name.]

Now, I can do up to 170! (The answer is 7.25741562 × 10³⁰⁶). After that, it falls over. But hey, not bad.

Calculator Mistakes

Now, what about those mistakes I was talking about? The following article from CNET.com writer Steven Shankland shows that when the numbers are huge, the calculator could be off a bit (or a lot).

See Google's calculator muffs some math problems

I tend to agree with Shankland. They should put effort into getting this right, with the amount of resources at their disposal you'd think they could...

 

UPDATE (Dec 2018): Google's phone calculator app appears to have solved most of the issues mentioned by Shankland's (old now) article.

See the 6 Comments below.