Alan Eliasen, a fellow member of the Triple Nine Society, has created a free programmable calculation utility called
Frink (named after the scientist character on the Simpsons), which will run on any device that has a JVM (Java), including most smartphones as well as computers. Frink understands virtually any unit of measure (2182 physical unit names, plus 1223 currency names) common or obscure, and can calculate and convert them. Using Frink, dimensional analysis becomes second nature.
For instance one could enter “grain c^2 -> gal gasoline” and find that a grain (about 65mg) is equivalent to the energy released by burning about 41,600 US gallons of gasoline. “87 quad /c^2 -> ton” will convert the total energy use of the US (87 quadrillion BTUs) to mass, giving 1.125 tons.
Frink can convert prices in USD or GBP between different years, e.g. “dollar_1932 -> dollar_2000” gives about 12.57. When online, currency conversions can be made at present market rates.
Frink can also access natural language translations online, allowing one to translate sentences between English and over a dozen other languages. Frink supports Unicode throughout, so Greek and Chinese are no problem.
While usually used as a simple calculator, Frink also has extensive programming capabilities, including self-evaluation (allows programs to edit themselves and run the new version), interval arithmetic (good for error bars), rational numbers (no loss of precision with fractions), complex numbers, dimensional drawings, animation, number theory functions, advanced list, array and string manipulation, and webpage parsing functions. The date/time arithmetic is especially good, handling everything from lunations to leap seconds
I use Frink several times a day on average, and have for the past 5 years or so. Nothing else is as easy, adaptable and powerful. I'm planning to teach an online seminar to help get comfortable with using it for back-of-the-envelope physics calculations and brainstorming. If anyone is interested, please let me know.
Frink
