<p>Whats the best graphing calculator to get for calculus? I have a TI-84 Plus but I heard the TI-89 Titanium is better for calculus. Is it worth getting the TI-89 Titanium?</p>
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<p>Yes! The TI-89 Titanium is worth getting, however, some calculus professors won't let you use graphing calculators on the test simply because you can automatically get the answers. You'll definitely have to have strong algebra & trig skills...not skills in punching in numbers and getting the right answer on the graphing calculator. Professors will usually allow you to use a scientific calculator.</p>
<p>You'll most likely use the TI-89 titanium when you start your engineering courses...for example, linear regression or whatever. You'll definitely have an advantage there.</p>
<p>Is it worth throwing away a new TI-84 Plus just to get a TI-89 Titanium? And you could use graphing calculator on some homework.</p>
<p>I still use my old, trusty TI-83 that I got in seventh grade. That makes it... eleven years old now. (Yikes!) That which I couldn't do on my 83 during undergrad, and even now in grad school, I would just do on a computer. More number-crunching power on that, anyhow. If you don't want to invest in an 89, it's definitely not required, just make sure that you've got a calculator whose bells and whistles you know how to <em>use</em>.</p>
<p>Hmm... I still don't know half the funtions on my 84 plus. I just don't want to be disadvantaged by not having the best calculator (TI-89 Titanium) which can do calculus effortlessly.</p>
<p>i have a ti-89. whetever you do (ive said this in other threads too)...DON"T get dependant on your calc. learn to do the math without the calc.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>If you're buying a new one, I'd go with the TI-89, but if you already have a 84, I think that should be sufficient.</p>
<p>Karthikkito, as a tutor and TA of a bunch of the nation's "most promising young engineers" who can't add in their heads, your suggestion makes me extremely happy!</p>
<p>naw... learning to do the math on your own is overrated. I heart the TI-89.</p>
<p>Not knowing how to do simple math quickly will irritate both your instructors and your future employers and will lose you recommendation points.</p>
<p>Most professors won't let you use an 89 on tests.</p>
<p>Or go with an HP, because rpn is awesome :)</p>
<p>or learn to do it yourself..they managed to do this stuff before calculators</p>
<p>Of course i'm not saying you should have to write out pages of long division or anything, but you get my point</p>
<p>I think the highest TI models I was allowed to use were the 82/83 and the 85/86, which were in the same "family" for the most part.</p>
<p>The 89s and higher will make homework easy... but could hurt you big time on the exams if you become dependent on the little calculator that could.</p>
<p>For the record, I own two slide rules. Always considered bringing those into a test just to see people's reactions. :-)</p>
<p>i feel the ti-89 is a great tool. although we can't use them in most math classes (my vector calc did let me use it), you might be allowed to use it on engineering exams/physics exams, which still makes it incredibly useful. i often find it useful for finding answers quickly for things were there is no answer key. in addition, downloadable programs can greatly expand its functionality (calculating divergence, curl, gradients, multiple integrals, tensors, etc...) in addition i have found it incredibly useful for 'experimenting' for example if you want to verify certain things through computation you can do it very quickly w/ the 89 w/out actually grinding through the computation yourself.</p>
<p>In high school, we were told to keep our TI-83+s for BC Calc, and our school has one of the highest pass rates in the district, not significantly lower than a nearby school that requires TI-89s. As to their use in college courses, I'm not sure, but it seems like most of the things the TI-89 can do in addition to the other are things you need to learn/understand yourself. It might be useful for checking yourself when you're doing homework, but you can probably find an emulator online. What's most important is that you know how to use the functions you need on the calculator that you have.</p>
<p>Its useless to learn to do the math without the calc because in this age, you will have accesss to a calculator EVERYWHERE. Thats what my math teacher said. And the TI-89 Titanium seems WAY WAY WAY WAY better than the TI-84.</p>
<p>Our pre-calculus/AP Calculus BC teacher lets the students use calculators for homework, but every other test is pencil and paper only. Our 60+ students had a 100% pass rate this past year.</p>
<p>Hiko, teachers aren't the end-all be-all authorities on what you <em>should</em> learn and what you <em>shouldn't</em>. Your teacher is incredibly wrong on this.</p>
<p>If you don't know the theory behind the math, if you don't know how to make intelligent estimations and if you don't know how your calculator gets the answers from the numbers that you put into it, you could easily make a mistake and not know it. Since we're in an engineering forum, when engineers make a mistake, people can die.</p>
<p>If I were to just enter all my numbers into a finite element analysis program and miss one of the boundary conditions, or mess it up slightly, it could give me an answer that looked more or less correct that was, in fact, horribly incorrect. As a result of that mistake, I could order wide-flange beams that are slightly too small for the correct loadings, and then someone has a huge party on the 18th floor of my building and packs their office with people. The music comes on and the people start dancing at a rate that's near the natural frequency of the building. Because the beams are too small, because I didn't know the theory behind designing beams and using the finite element method, the beam fractures from the dynamic loading, the building collapses, everybody dies, and I lose my license and go to jail for the rest of my life for gross negligence and wreckless endangerment.</p>
<p>Welcome to "not useless to learn to do the math".</p>
<p>Well my math teacher was previously a software engineer. And he says its ok to rely on your calculator because wherever you go on your job, your going to have access to it. As long as you understand the basic principle of it, then he said you can use your calculators. We got to use calculator and book on every test because thats whats its going to like in the real world, engineers just look stuff up in handbooks and use calculators. Nobody is going to expect you to remember a bunch of formulas or theorems on any job because the calculator can do all that.</p>