It sure looks like it would though.
Noteful and a competent calculator with CAS functionality on the other hand might be a different outcome.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/16/24194423/math-notes-ipad-...
Either way, and on a more fundamental note: I’m a little dubious that “completing equations” is a net benefit for math education. It really seems like a small nice-to-have-available affordance tacked on to the real game changer: a computer that can adaptively challenge a student and competently answer clarifying questions without making it too easy. Y’know, just AGI stuff lol
As we’ve all seen from ChatGPT’s impact on English courses already, this all will require a fundamental rethink of how we teach children and adolescents. Homework is a bandaid over capitalist failings, and it’s beginning to peel…
A $200 Chromebook can do 10x. Guess what, that's exactly why schools buy Chromebooks.
As for education, you don't really need a calculator. We don't really use them that much. Pen, paper, ears.
As for computers, programmed randomised questions with deterministic answers and documented steps to solve the problems are the right way. LLMs can't do that even if they look like they can. some universities actually have tools which generate those. Those are truly enlightening as you can see the reasoning properly.
math education is not likely going to be "revolutionized" with technology or that would have already happened
Wolfram Mathematica – it is designed for smart and highly educated people – CAS with M-expr LISP frontend isn't for everybody. Math Notes is designed for children of ages 6-99.
But you hit the nail on the head with "narrow undefined subset". Documentation on Math Notes is almost non-existent. There are standards for math notation, so I guess they will announce it when they match parity. Again, too soon.
I agree that capabilities are extremely limited. More than CAS I would like to see native support for differentiable tensors – https://mlajtos.mu/posts/new-kind-of-paper-2
Handheld calculators that calculate logs require a human to hit buttons; that's the rate limiting process.
Both the calculator and slide rule are fast at the actual table lookup. The hairline mark on the slide rule's cursor performs a fast lookup; it instantaneously links the input value with its logarithm.
It's the button punching on the calculator, or sliding of the cursor of the slide rule, and the reading of the result, that are slow.
The limitations of slide rules compared to calculators are:
- precision: you can't get anywhere near a six figure logarithm or product. In engineering, you usually don't need this; but you do need intuition for being in the right ballpark. Forget slide rules for accounting/finance though.
- variety of functions: there are only so many tables you can fit on a slide rule before it becomes unwieldy.
- lack of registers for recalling prior values, such as frequently reused intermediaries. Even the cheapest, simples calculators usually have an accumulator register you can add to or subtract from, recall and clear. The user can have several slide rules to have multiple cursors left at different values.
The actual speed of calculating what is available, with the available precision, is not bad. The game-changing speed difference comes with programmable calculators.