'Calculators Killed the Standard Statistical Table' (sas.com) 180
theodp writes: In an obituary of sorts for the standard probability tables that were once ubiquitous in introductory statistics textbooks, Rick Wicklin writes: "In my first probability and statistics course, I constantly referenced the 23 statistical tables (which occupied 44 pages!) in the appendix of my undergraduate textbook. Any time I needed to compute a probability or test a hypothesis, I would flip to a table of probabilities for the normal, t, chi-square, or F distribution and use it to compute a probability (area) or quantile (critical value). If the value I needed wasn't tabulated, I had to manually perform linear interpolation from two tabulated values. I had no choice: my calculator did not have support for these advanced functions. In contrast, kids today have it easy! When my son took AP statistics in high school, his handheld calculator (a TI-84, which costs about $100) could compute the PDF, CDF, and quantiles of all the important probability distributions. Consequently, his textbook did not include an appendix of statistical tables."
So what? (Score:5, Funny)
I was in one of the last years my high school taught to use sliderules. Fancy ones already had trig scales. Didn't need the trig tables anymore.
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That's a LOT better than the knots-on-strings I learned with.
Re: So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
All of those are functionally better than a calculator. A slide rule, abacus or knots on a string all provide a spacial metaphor for values. These spacial metaphors allow your brain to visualize a value's meaning, even when transitioning to calculator. Without this, the answer is just a food pellet delivered by magic when the feeder bar is pressed.
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We were one of the first cohorts to go into the exams where calculators were permitted.
But we were taught slide rules (and tables) a) in case your calculator went tits up and b) because some things, like how equal intervals represents equal multiplicands were good for illustrating how logs worked.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Funny)
That's a LOT better than the knots-on-strings I learned with.
I remember when string was invented. It saved time on having to make arrays of chars.
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Knots-on-strings? I WISH were so lucky! We had to use chalk on the sides of buffalo. And they were always moving around and rolling answers off in the dust. I had to repeat grade 5 because a spit ball spooked my exam results.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Funny)
Ah yes, chalk on moving buffalo.
'Course, there's an emacs command for that.
Pure Luxury (Score:3)
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It was a good day when we upgraded to an Addiator.
Need better editors (Score:2)
From the end of TFA:
It might be bad luck to speak ill of the dead, but I say, "good riddance"; I never liked using those tables anyway.
They're not saying it was good to have them. That's mostly implied from what the bit above, or from the submitter.
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Using them meant you knew how they worked.
I don't have a problem with calculators (I use the HP Prime, for example), but one should know how the calculations work before being given the shortcut.
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It is important to know how the process works, but looking up a number in a statistical table doesn't tell you how statistics works any better than punching numbers into a calculator and getting the answer.
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One of our teachers gave everyone in my Further Maths A-level class a slide rule from school supplies to keep, because they no longer needed them. I've still got mine. Curiously, I don't think I still have the graphical calculator I bought the year before.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Freshman year in college, learning how to use a sliderule was mandatory. A year later they were gone, completely disappeared. The TI SR-50 killed them.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Freshman year in college, learning how to use a sliderule was mandatory. A year later they were gone, completely disappeared. The TI SR-50 killed them.
"Anyone who can't use a slide rule is a cultural illiterate and should not be allowed to vote."
(Robert Heinlein, in "Have Space Suit, Will Travel")
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loved that book as a young man.
Me, too. I've got a first edition of it somewhere.
A less well known quote is on the page right after that other one: "Slide rules are the greatest invention since girls"
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I was in one of the last years my high school taught to use sliderules. Fancy ones already had trig scales. Didn't need the trig tables anymore.
I still use one, just for kicks.
"Fancy" ones had much more than trig scales. My 1974-model Faber-Castell 2/83N Novo-Duplex has 33 scales on it.
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Slide rules are awesome, once you get how they work. Thanks to a slide rule in high school, I can approximate stuff like the 8th root of a large number in my head (and usually get it right to two significant digits).
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When I was in junior high, calculators had become cheap enough that some/many of the students had one, but they were not allowed to use them in math, physics, etc. classes.
I had a slide rule and was allowed to use it in those classes. It was quite amusing at the time.
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I was taught to use log and trig tables at high school, although everyone had a calculator so this was a case of the curriculum not having caught up with current needs. I wasn't taught slide rule, but I taught myself. With a slide rule, Sine Rule calculations are nearly as easy as a multiplication or division - I could do them much faster than the folks using calculators (although with lower precision.) For Cosine Rule, they are not so useful.
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When I was about 12 I got the standard pack of setsquares, compasses and sliderule.
The sliderule itself seems to be in some kind of quantum relationship with its instruction booklet - I haven't seen both at the same time since about 1976. Luckily, when it's in plastic form it's relatively easy to work it out from first principles plus a bit of trial and error.
Not a problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't see this as a problem. At some point, you have to consider whether NOT walking to school in 12 feet of snow up hill both ways somehow contributed to a better education that allows us to do the amazing things we do these days. Some things simply harder, without being better.
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I just don't see this as a problem. At some point, you have to consider whether NOT walking to school in 12 feet of snow up hill both ways somehow contributed to a better education that allows us to do the amazing things we do these days. Some things simply harder, without being better.
Knowing how to use things like slide rules still expands the mind, even if you never use them in practice.
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Knowing how to use things like slide rules still expands the mind, even if you never use them in practice.
Better expand the mind with things that will be used, not obsolete stuff.
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Better expand the mind with things that will be used, not obsolete stuff.
So... we should exclude all art, music, poetry, science fiction, etc., right?
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I guess if you're just learning to use a slide rule robotically instead of learning how/why it works then you might be right, it's pointless.
Do you learn all your other stuff like that, too?
The only problem here I see... (Score:5, Insightful)
But smaller share of earnings (Score:2)
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I can remember TI-82 and 83 I was required to use back in 1995-1997 costing about $120. It's crazy that a TI-83 still cost almost as much new:
https://www.officedepot.com/a/... [officedepot.com]
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I actually don't think it's that outrageous considering that it is hardware. At least kids today can instead use an app on their phone.
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I actually don't think it's that outrageous considering that it is hardware. At least kids today can instead use an app on their phone.
Not at my kid's school. They made us all buy $180 calculators for our kids going into Freshman year.
Re:The only problem here I see... (Score:5, Informative)
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Many people are pointing out that you can get an app for a pad or phone that does everything a TI calculator does and then the device itself does many more things.
This is not why the TI has value.
The TI has value because of all the things it *can't* do ... while your taking your standardized test. It *can't* text your math savvy buddy across the room for answers. It *can't* google them. etc etc etc.
This is why TI can still charge what they charge. Their calculator is approved for use on the test.
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Re: The only problem here I see... (Score:2)
It seems like they should be able to get some cheap smartphones and lock them down enough that they can only run a single calculator app. That should cost less than $100 per device, but doesn't include labor costs.
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No they don’t. Plenty of JS and Android based TI emulators. Give a student a $25 Android with a locked down environment.
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yes, they do. the shit you're talking about isn't allowed and the real calculator is required.
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Face it, computer memory is cheap. You could fit one of the old CRC handbooks (that was Chemical Rubber Company, not any other CRC) on even a small micro-SD card and have room left over for an encyclopedia, the complete works of Shakespeare, a detailed atlas and pret
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Given how my TI-84 still works through years of abuse, being dropped, bashed, hit, tossed in a bag, and generally horribly mistreated,.... I think the world would be far better off if everything had a $100 base cost.
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I prefer Casio ones because they support engineering units better, but they are still $100...
The Chinese make some cheap graphic models: https://www.aliexpress.com/who... [aliexpress.com]
Not exam certified but if you just need a decent graphic calculator they might be worth a punt.
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Do they only allow the TI-84? My school allowed either a Casio (model # forgotten) or a TI-84. I used the Casio for a while but I realized the coin cell batteries to keep them going was going to add up over the years. I know HP had some good calculators that some college classes allowed.
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I'm moving. Just discovered both the casio and the TI, sitting together in a box. I haven't used either in more than a decade.
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Do they only allow the TI-84? My school allowed either a Casio (model # forgotten) or a TI-84. I used the Casio for a while but I realized the coin cell batteries to keep them going was going to add up over the years. I know HP had some good calculators that some college classes allowed.
I had a Casio, I liked it because I already knew BASIC so I could easily write my own games for the Casio. I can't remember why, but the TIs out at the time were less desirable to me to program on.
Then senior year at high school rolled around and they made us get those HP calculators... they already had so many games written for them I didn't bother writing my own.
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The College Board, who make the AP tests among other things, allow a lot of different calculators--not just TI.
https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/takingtheexam/exam-policies/calculator-policy [collegeboard.org]
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Textbooks and educators often teach solely TI ways of programming the calculators. Whether an exam allows others is largely irrelevant at that point.
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When I started programming, we didn't even know which town the computer we were working on was located, let alone whether it was big-endian, little-endian, or analogue. We sent our coding in on the forms for transcription, and got the results back on rolls of perforated paper tape which we could either run through the printer, or just read directly.
Well, yeah. (Score:4, Informative)
There used to be books of nothing but tables of logarithms and other mathematical tables, like trig functions. You used them when you needed more significant places in your answer than a slide rule could give you. I still have the one my dad used in college. They don't make those any more.
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Yes they do. Stegun and Abramowitz ("Handbook of Mathematical Functions," Dover Books, originally NIST) is what I use and it's still in print. Cost is about $30 from Amazon. If you want tables of integrals, Gradshtyen a
Lazarus Long (Score:4, Insightful)
Now we're getting to the point where: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
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You forgot dig a well or find clean drinking water....
I tried to teach all my kids how to survive not that i'm a nature survivalist nut but it's not a bad idea to know how to hunt, fish, clean and cook what catch, build a shelter, etc...
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I'd hang on to that book. It could actually be handy when EMP from the nuclear war knocks out stuff. Even the solar calculators may not work in nuclear winter. But your book will continue to work.
I don't think I'll be looking up chi square values after the bomb drops.
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Re:Well, yeah. (Score:4, Informative)
They still do.
CRC Handbook of Standard Mathematical Tables
https://www.amazon.com/Standar... [amazon.com]
Re:Well, yeah. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yes and no. The survivors will initially have more to worry about than computing a sinc value of finding a F value, but if they want to rebuild to a technological civilization these tables will be amongst the most valuable artefacts on the planet. The ability to do complex calculations will cut decades off the recovery time for getting out technology back.
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...but if they want to rebuild to a technological civilization these tables will be amongst the most valuable artefacts on the planet.
Hardly. It might take a bit of boring effort but it is not hard to calculate all the values in these tables from scratch by hand.
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Ever tried it? There is a reason that Mr Babbage tried to build an analytic engine. Old artillery tables tended to be riddled with errors. Universities and research labs used to have hundreds of people devoting their lives to "computing" with pencil and paper. A book of statistical tables or logs used to take years to prepare. I don't know about you, but if I am trying to rebuild civilization I want to be able to do it before my children die of old age.
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A book of statistical tables or logs used to take years to prepare.
True but this is just a matter of time: if you know what sine, logs etc are then you know enough to be able to calculate them by hand even if it will take years to make accurate tables. Now consider something like steel. Simply knowing that steel exists is not even close to enough information to be able to produce it. The same is true for the vast majority of materials around us. If we lose that information it will take many, many more years to recreate it.
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And plenty of other things (Score:3)
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...knowledge on how to interpolate for intermediate values in those tables.
That is a critical skill. I remember learning that in thermo to find values from steam tables. I still interpolate sometimes based on values I have available to me.
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...hauling around those big books.
For me that's the critical skill. And with smartphones getting bigger and bigger, it may become relevant again.
Interpolation (Score:2)
Yes, elementary function libraries are normally highly table driven and may only need a single linear interpolation at the cost of bigger tables, all for speed. The slickest method I've worked with was the accurate tables method [wikipedia.org], which gets better-than-expected accuracy by pre-computing the table values, not at a fixed interval, but at nearby points that just happen to have better accuracy than the type's precision (because the values are chosen such that, if they're represented in extended precision, they
And modern desktop systems take that even further. (Score:2)
When you run a statistical test they automatically run sanity checks which warn you if the data doesn't look like it should be used with that particular test.
This is a huge advance over the way statistics was done when I was a college student in the 80s, where it was common to collect the data and then go hunting for exotic tests that would give you a significant result because nobody had the time to check. Although I'm sure that's still done, it's a lot easier to double check someone's significance claims.
And that's a good thing (Score:2)
I'm all for various forms of retro tech but, seriously, statistical tables? I don't want them back.
I like things such as slide rules, pocket calculators, and even statistical graph paper but tables don't aid my intuition one little bit. If I were to need a statistical table, I would calculate it with a spreadsheet or R or whatever tool handy.
First. World. Problems: Paper isn't wasted (Score:5, Insightful)
First. World. Problems: We no longer waste paper to print archaic Mathematical tables [wikipedia.org] /sarcasm OH NOES!
You know what else is "dead" ?
* Slide rule [wikipedia.org]
* Tables of common Logarithms [sosmath.com]
* Tables of Trigonometric functions [wikipedia.org]
Guess what, nobody is stopping you from buying those tables [amazon.com] from old CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics which have them.
Apparently you didn't get the memo that a cheap calculator is "good enough."
What's next?
Whining that we don't have rotary telephones? Black and White televisions?
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First. World. Problems: We no longer waste paper to print archaic Mathematical tables
Whining that we don't have rotary telephones? Black and White televisions?
Morse Code. Kids today with their smart phones and texting. Emoticons? BAH! Back in my day we had Morse Code, where you learned how to read. We didn't need no stinkin' Egyptian Hieroglyphics.
Oh, and I heard about competitions between operators, where they would listen to the incoming text but delay writing down the message as long as possible, to see which one has the best operating short-term memory. Oh, never mind the bits coming in at insane speeds.
"Morse Code isn't being taught to radio operat
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Anyone that belongs on this website should be able to produce those tables with a bit of code.
When I first learned to code in a high school computer club, making a table of temperature conversions or table of squares or something was a typical thing a person would screw around with the first day they caught on to how programming works.
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Good! (Score:2)
Like several of the posters above, I am of the age where trig, log (base 10 and e), statistics values were all found at the end of the textbook (I was also the last year at my high school to use a slide rule). What nobody has noted is what a pain in the ass it was to look up values in a table. Tables of these values aren't big, nicely spaced and easy to read like you see in a modern power point presentation, there were 100 or so rows per page (which means a smaller font) with 10 columns and maybe extra sp
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They have it easy? (Score:2)
The price of a textbook (Score:2)
When you can buy a very capable calculator for $100 but a mathematics textbook is $200 you know something is backwards. And that $200's doesn't even get you any practical tables.
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I've dealt with the textbook industry after designing parts of eBook readers at two companies. Most of my interactions with the publishing industry was dealing with their market manipulation bullshit. A mathematics textbook for a junior college does not need to be updated every 2-4 years, but we go out of our way to make sure students have to buy new books instead of used.
Then there is the whole dirty business of TI graphing calculators manipulating the entire publishing market for K-12 textbooks. One of th
There are always books of random numbers... (Score:2)
Not new (Score:2)
Hell, I took statistics more than 25 years ago and I'm pretty sure my old HP calculator could do all those functions. Certainly, we could do them with Quattro Pro. I just had to pull out my Statistics textbook ('91) to verify that it actually had those tables in it. I certainly don't recall using them even in the early 90s.
- Necron69
RPN (Score:2)
The thing I really miss is a good RPN calculator. Yeah, I could get an HP emulator, but it's just not the same thing.
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I've had the HP-42S since about 1988, but the screen started going bad a couple of years ago, and then a row of buttons failed. It was the first model (I think) where HP started to cheap out and ultrasonic-weld the cases shut, so it's nearly impossible to get it open to service it without causing more damage. I replaced it with a used 42S from ebay, but it, too, is starting to have problems. I think my dad still has his 16C from the early '80s (maybe late '70s?), and last I knew it was working great. I
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I don't have one, but I like the 16C. As I recall, it can handle full 64-bit numbers and display them in decimal, hex, octal, or even binary thanks to the scrolling / panning feature. The 42S can do binary but not numbers that big, let alone trying to display big numbers in binary. As I recall, doing hex on it is a lot more intuitive, or at least fewer button presses than my beloved 42S.
And the battery life on a 16C is typically measured in decades.
HP made some good stuff.
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I used my HP 21 calculator in high school.
I have my (Linux) gcalculator set to RPN now.
Babbage (Score:3)
Just a few days ago I was watching an old documentary which stated that the impetus for Charles Babbage creating the Difference Engine was his frustration with dealing with inaccurate mathmatical tables. I was skeptical of this claim, but at least Wikipedia backs it up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I was skeptical of this claim, but at least Wikipedia backs it up
Well that's good enough for me.
SF take on this (Score:2)
There was a short story (Asimov IIRC) about a future world where everyone had calculators, and then a man reverse engineered one and figured out that he could "simulate" its operations on paper. He finally convinced a skeptical general that it worked, who set in motion a plan to build a manned missile (suicide weapon) because a human pilot was cheaper than a computer.
The truly inventive part of this story is the new problem it found. Anyone could think of "No one knows how to use a table of logarithms anymo
great tune (Score:3)
'Calculators Killed the Standard Statistical Table'
That's the name of my favorite Buggles song!
I think.
Good Riddance (Score:2)
"Good riddance." That's literally the conclusion in the article.
Basically, a newsletter produced by a company which makes statistical analysis software published a fluff piece laying some history on the kids and musing, "Aren't you glad we have software now?" The article is mildly nostalgic for the pre-calculator crowd and mildly interesting for the post-calculator crowd. It's not meant to be a controversial think-piece.
I teach both (Score:2)
Each has its advantages. A calculator obviously can get you very precise numbers for critical values, probabilities, and the like. For those learning statistics though, teaching how to use a table helps to slow students down, reinforce their understanding of what they are actually doing, and facilitates a conceptual connection to the underlying probability distribution. It is very easy to mistype the wrong number into a calculator, or use the wrong function, or fail to calculate the probability of the ap
My calculator caused me to fail calculus (Score:2)
Modern Technology (Score:2)
That's ok, I gave up my star charts and sextant/compass for GPS too. This is how modern technology works. There is a reason we don't teach people how to churn butter or plow a field either.
Clay tablets!?!? (Score:2)
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Yeah,
and when I learned to program, we only used zeros and ones.
Sometimes we even had no ones!
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I wouldn't touch APK's software with a ten foot pole. He's not even providing digital signatures on his software.
You must assume it is infected with malware at any given time. Even if a third party tested APK Hosts File Engine you have no idea if what was tested is what is on his website.
Compounded on this is the requirement for running as root on Linux/BSD and the lack of good malware scanning on Linux.
Total garbage software from human garbage. APK can't code and he knows jack shit about security best prac