Back in high school, when I first started taking some of the more advanced math classes, I would have loved to have had the sort of tools and resources that the Internet now offers. Instead, I had to invest in an expensive scientific graphic calculator – the famous HP 48G. It took me a full summer of washing dishes to save up for that baby, but it got me through both high school and college.

Today, if you’re an engineering or a science student and you want a useful and fast math computer program that can solve complicated math or algebraic equations in just seconds, you have a whole plethora of options on the Internet.

One of the best free applications that I discovered for this purpose is called Deadline. Need to calculate derivatives, integrals or the roots of an equation? Not a problem. Want to save the resulting graph to a report or a document filled with your homework solutions? It’s easy, just run Deadline and you can generate, manipulate and save any graph and the resulting mathematical solutions.

Solve Equations & Math Problems

When you first start the Deadline Wizard, you’ll have an opportunity to type in your equation, enter all of the equation parameters, and also type in the x-axis interval (the range of values that will be used in the formula to generate the graph of results).

When you click OK, you’ll instantly see a plot of your entire graph. In the top right field, you can modify whatever parameters you used in the equation on the first screen. This is useful because you can graphically see how changing each parameter changes your entire set of results. In this example, increasing “m” shifts the entire graph up.

You can also click on the roots (where the formula solution is zero), and you’ll see those roots represented in the graph as large green dots. You can also change the resolution of the graph by reducing or increasing the number of “points” used in the generation of the graph. Obviously, 1000 points will create a nice and smooth graph, but you can decrease it down to only 10 points to see how this affects results.

Working With Mathematical Solutions For Your Formulas

The nice thing about Deadline is that it doesn’t just graph results. You can actively change the formula or parameters as part of the graphic process. When you click Calculate -> Evaluate from the menu, you’ll see the three derivative results (f, f’ and f”) for each value of x that you’d like to test.

If you’re familiar with derivatives, you can select Calculate -> Derive to view the differential equations based on your original formula. This may not be useful for basic math problems, but for students working on advanced calculus or engineering problems, this can be extremely useful.

Even more useful to engineers and scientists is the ability to calculate and view the integrals for your equation. The integral is basically the amount of area between your graph of results and the x axis of the chart. Knowing this total area for a certain range is very valuable information, and this graphic software offers that answer with just a few keystrokes.

Under the “Calculate” menu item, you’ll also see the “find Extrema” tool, which gives you the peaks (extrema) of the graph in the range that you’ve displayed.

When you’re finished tweaking the chart with the parameters that you want, you can save the current graph to an image file (PNG format). This is obviously very useful for inserting the graph results in reports or homework solutions that you may be working on. In this format, you could also insert the graphs directly into a website or online posting.

DeadLine also comes with a built in “calculator” for those complicated math problems that have no variables. This is great for complex math problems that you just can’t do in your head.  Do you have 20 apples that you sell for 10 dollars each and want to divide among 4 friends and their 2 siblings? Just kick open the calculator and type “(20*10)/(4*2)” and you’re done.  No matter how complicated the problem, the calculator will always pull through.

As you type in each equation, the equation and resulting solution gets logged in the top window. I find the Deadline graphic and math calculator to be one of the most useful and functional math computer programs that I’ve discovered so far.

I would love to hear what you think of it, and whether you know of any other similar, or more useful and fast math computer programs that get the job done just as well.

Image Credit: Kim André Silkebækken