Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2019 June 15

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June 15

Excuse me...

Sometimes when I'm on the computer and I do something with the touchpad, the screen zooms in. (No, this is NOT the same thing as the screen zooming in by pressing Ctrl-+ or Ctrl--. This is just something that happens when I do something to the touchpad that means the zoom status still says 100%.) Any reason this happens and any way to undo it?? Georgia guy (talk) 12:25, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

It might be equivalent to the ctrl-mouse wheel turn which can zoom in or out. THis might be triggered by dragging on the edge of the touchpad, or two finger swipe. (on mac) Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:43, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the same thing happens with two fingers swiped apart on my Windows 10 touchpad, but the percentage changes too. Dbfirs 13:12, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

On top of that, some programs - including Excel, Word, etc. - have sliders to control the zoom. If you weren't conscious of exactly where the pointer was, it would be easy to accidentally scroll them. Matt Deres (talk) 15:20, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

What program do you use to turn in math homework.

Ive gone back on the school bench but last time i went there i turned in math written in the hand, now I have to hand it over electronically. What programs would you guys advice me to use. Basicly like can word or excell be good at making graphs and writing exponents and square roots etc. And is there any tutorial in easily finding and formatting math things. 91.101.26.175 (talk) 22:07, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm surprised your teacher didn't specify what to use. I wouldn't expect general word processing software to do a very good job. One option is to use wiki formatting for equations. You can go to any of our math articles to see how we format things, for example, quadratic formula. Then write up your homework on your user page (create a subpage). As for graphs, I like GCalc ([1]), but you can use your favorite app and then do screen grabs to save the graphs, if it doesn't have a native method. The easiest way to include them would probably be as appendices, rather than integrating them in the main document. That avoids all the formatting issues that come up when including graphs in the body of the text, like graph lines not displaying properly at reduced resolutions (you can submit the appendices at full resolution). Note that there are integrated math packages like Wolfram Mathematica that do it all, but that sounds like way more than you need, and it may take too long to learn. SinisterLefty (talk) 02:25, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Incidentally, the easiest way to do exponents here is this way:

 <math> x^2 </math> =  $x^{2}$

Square roots are done like this:

 <math> \sqrt{x} </math> = ${\sqrt {x}}$

SinisterLefty (talk) 02:35, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

You may want to look at LaTeX Dja1979 (talk) 02:54, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Last fall I took a college math course after being out of college for 34 years. Most homework was done on paper. When I wanted to write it up better, the first time I used Microsoft Word. My daughter just graduated from college and she used Word - she was very fast at doing math stuff in Word. But after using Word once, when I didn't want to write it on paper, I used LaTex. Note that is very old-fashioned and has a steep learning curve, but it is very similar to the way math is done on Wikipedia. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:10, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it old-fashioned simply because you're typing source code, not working in a WYSIWYG environment. It will definitely take some weeks to get used to, but I've never heard of a mathematician who didn't use LaTeX. It's the standard in that community. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:33, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

The way you have to put in the formatting stuff - I think that is basically how it was done in Wordstar, if I remember from 30+ years ago. Remember, TeX was designed in the 1970s. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:06, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Totally off the wall, but if you're happier using paper why not just scan the paper and email the scan to him? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:40, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

The instructor may not accept that, so they should check before making such a submission. SinisterLefty (talk) 12:49, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

(OT)How times change. When I was at school teachers told us off for using a ballpoint instead of a fountain pen. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:54, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Teacher's grade given a century from now: "I had to mark you down because of the flat video format you used. I expect all answers to be submitted as 3D VR images. For example, your video of the mummy only showed the front, and without VR, I couldn't even walk around and look at the back." SinisterLefty (talk) 03:19, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

91.101.26.175, one of the most important factors is what will the instructor do with the homework once it is turned in. Skim it, and mark it off as done or not done in a gradebook? Print it and grade it with a red pencil? Make detailed comments and corrections in the same electronic system you used to submit it? Because of questions like this, your instructor is the only one who can say what format(s) are acceptable.

Another factor is that in any serious math-related occupation, actually doing the calculations is generally done in one system (SPICE, for example) and papers describing the results are written in a different system (LaTeX, for example). Quickly-prepared informal writing about math is often hand-written, even at the professional level. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:43, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Quick answer: ask your instructor what they'll accept. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 09:44, 17 June 2019 (UTC)