Discover Microsoft Mathematics 4.0: A Free Tool for High School Students

  • Thread starter Thread starter ZapperZ
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Mathematics
AI Thread Summary
Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 is a free tool aimed at high school students, but its capabilities have been criticized. Users have noted that the software lacks advanced features like adaptive sampling and graph smoothing, making it inferior to professional math software. One user compared its graphing abilities unfavorably to Gnuplot, suggesting it may not meet the needs of serious students or educators. The tool appears to be a collection of basic educational functionalities rather than a robust mathematical solution. Overall, while it is free, its effectiveness for high-level math tasks is questionable.
ZapperZ
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
Homework Helper
Insights Author
Messages
32,814
Reaction score
4,725
Physics news on Phys.org
I downloaded and had a try. Look at my attached screenshot of graphing a hyperbolic surface, and you'll know why it's a joke compared to professional math software.
 

Attachments

  • microsoft_math.JPG
    microsoft_math.JPG
    43.9 KB · Views: 525
  • microft_math2.JPG
    microft_math2.JPG
    43.7 KB · Views: 508
Last edited:
Zero amount of adaptive sampling / graph smoothing. (Running Gnuplot from Unix command line is way better.) This shows that probably it's just a cheap piece of software engineering putting all sorts of "educational" functionalities together, and the software engineers can't write hard-core numerical algorithm.
 
Back
Top