Calculators and Last Week's News and Research

Calculators are hardware or software designed to perform computations. Most are classified by their level of functionality, including basic calculators for simple arithmetic, scientific calculators for trigonometry, and graphing calculators for plotting equations. Like those custom-programmed for specific tasks, such as mortgage and income tax calculators, electronic calculators convert numbers into binary code, which is processed as electrical signals to produce outputs.

> Calculators get their name from calculi—the pebbles moved around an abacus.

> The first electromechanical adder of numbers in binary was built on a kitchen table.

The earliest predecessors to today's calculators range from mechanical devices that performed simple arithmetic and tallying (the abacus), determined the positions of celestial objects (the Antikythera mechanism), and measured the heights of objects using their shadows (the astrolabe). The 17th century saw the invention of the first mechanical calculators, which used sliders, gears, drums, and dials to complete calculations, but none became commercially successful until the arithmometer was launched in 1851.

> Greek for "star taker," the astrolabe allowed users to calculate the time of day.

> Watch a Christie's auction house specialist break down the Pascaline—one of the first mechanical calculators, whose inventor built it to help his tax collector father.

In the 20th century, electronic calculators replaced mechanical tracking of values with electronic switches that use the flow or blockage of electric current to encode ones and zeros. These switches are combined with logic gates—digital versions of conditional statements—to execute arithmetic operations, including those used to approximate complex functions. Due to memory limitations, most of these calculators round numbers and may not provide exact or correct answers.

> Visualize how logic gates work and allow "rocks" to do math.

> What do the M+, M-, MR, and MC keys do on a basic calculator? 

Discover more: 

> Adolf Hitler was to be gifted a calculator designed by a Nazi concentration camp prisoner upon winning World War II.

> If many calculator apps are free, why are graphing calculators still about $100?

> View featured submissions to the Desmos Art Contest, in which students create original works using graphing calculator tools.

Keep learning by exploring all our findings on Calculators here.

News in Context

1440 brings you the knowledge and context behind the week's stories:

NASA failed to save the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which is now expected to plummet to Earth later this year. (More)

> The Swift observatory has studied some of the most powerful explosions in the universe for over 20 years.

> Check out visualizations of the gamma-ray bursts observed by Swift.

The world's largest electric aircraft flew for 27 minutes only using battery power. (More)

> Watch the inaugural flight of X1, which weighs more than 25,000 pounds.

> How do airplanes fly?

Oceans reached their highest temperature in recorded history. (More)

> Oceans absorb about 90% of the thermal energy trapped by greenhouse gases.

> See a visualization of how ocean currents drive changes in weather and climate.

Nevada sued the federal government over its plan to cut the state's Colorado River water allocation. (More)

> Farming accounts for about 75% of the 1.9 trillion gallons of water drawn from the Colorado River yearly, but about half the irrigated crops aren't fed to people.

> Per capita, the US withdraws the sixth-most freshwater of any nation.

Research Spotlight

Like all great researchers, we love spending time learning about the latest breakthroughs across science and technology. Here's what we found this week.

3D atomic imaging suggests revising the long-accepted theory of crystal formation.

UCLA | Wayne Lewis. Classical nucleation theory suggests that condensation begins with a few particles of disordered matter forming a seed, or nucleus, that is then built around, with a distinct boundary separating the crystal from the surrounding disordered matter. By mapping individual atoms at various stages of the crystal's formation, scientists observed a gradient—a gradual change from a highly crystallized core to disordered matter—rather than a sharp boundary. (More)

> A crystal's shape comes from the arrangement of its atoms.

> What's the difference between crystals, gemstones, rocks, and minerals?

Lunar soil acts as a cosmic time capsule, preserving information about supernovas.

University of Hawaii at Mānoa | Marcie Grabowski. Scientists can analyze Earth's geological deposits to learn about space activity from preserved traces of material collected by the planet as it moved through space. Researchers have now developed a similar model to trace stellar explosions using samples that will be collected from the moon. Lunar regolith soil is expected to preserve evidence of the solar system's travel through the galaxy from the past 80 million to 100 million years. (More)

> Scientists estimate the ages of rocks by analyzing radioactive elements.

> Regolith—from the Greek for "rock blanket"—is not exclusive to the moon. 

Rain may combine with wildfire smoke particles to create airborne fertilizer.

University of Utah | Lisa Potter. Black soot aerosols from wildfires carry nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other nutrients into the atmosphere, and these aerosols can mix with water droplets to create smoke-rain that returns these elements to ecosystems. Satellite-derived smoke observations and national network rainfall data suggest that smoke-rain events are becoming more common, though their impacts may be positive or negative, depending on an environment's characteristics. (More)

> How do nitrogen, phosphorus, and other elements affect plants?

> Learn more about wildfires from the "1440 Explores" podcast.

Temperature is not the only factor behind hibernation-related black bear behaviors.
Virginia Tech | Chris Moody. An analysis of 22,000 hours of video tracking four wild, pregnant female black bears across phases of their hibernation cycles linked 45 distinct actions to physiological changes and environmental cues, including daylight duration. As climates shift, researchers worry hibernation timing may be altered by mismatches in long-standing patterns between these cues and temperature. (More)

> Female black bears can give birth and lactate while hibernating.

> During hibernation, what prevents bears from getting blood clots due to inactivity?

Etcetera

> If flamingos get their color from the food they eat, can their diet be changed to create green or blue flamingos?

> The QWERTY keyboard layout was popularized by a gun manufacturer.

> All bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs.

> Scientists have imaged Earth's subterranean environment using thunderquakes.

> Without observing Earth from space, can we prove that the planet rotates?

> Under its reduced gravity, swimmers could jump onto a diving board from a pool on the moon.

> There are so many ways to shuffle 52 cards that each time you do, you create an order that has likely never existed in the history of the universe.
 

> The supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies may have started as black hole stars.
 

> The world's largest deserts are led by two of Earth's coldest regions.

> If consuming salt water can be deadly, how do some fish survive drinking salt water?

> Contrary to popular belief, chameleons don't normally change color for camouflage.

> Check out an eye-catching visualization of atmospheres across the solar system.