I can't calculate a simple math expression 1.3e4 * 10 in the Gnome's calculator in scientific mode, I just get "Malformed expression" warning below the number pane. What am I supposed to do?
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1 Answer
Gnome calculator would prefer to see
1.3x10^4 * 10
A shortcut to do this is to press ctrl+e, as in
1.3ctrl+e4
This can be found in the calculator application help menu, under 'scientific notation'
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I wonder why it is not intuitive as it's supposed to be?, it works though.Jim-chriss Charles– Jim-chriss Charles2019-04-22 14:14:18 +00:00Commented Apr 22, 2019 at 14:14
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@Jim-chrissCharles The notation that you used does work elsewhere, like in the LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet, and I would have used it myself! Gnome Calculator is useful to me for short, small calculations but not much that's more complex.Charles Green– Charles Green2019-04-22 14:20:19 +00:00Commented Apr 22, 2019 at 14:20
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@Jim-chrissCharles It's very intuitive if you're familiar with LaTeX, but I agree it feels like a strange design choice not to support the e-style notation.undercat– undercat2019-04-22 14:45:17 +00:00Commented Apr 22, 2019 at 14:45
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@undercat I knew I recognized it from somewhere - but it's been several years since I did serious work with LaTeXCharles Green– Charles Green2019-04-22 14:46:29 +00:00Commented Apr 22, 2019 at 14:46
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This notation doesn't follow precedence rules. For example
2e80/5e79should come out as4but2×10⁸⁰÷5×10⁷⁹comes out as4×10¹⁵⁸. I know I can "solve" this by putting parentheses around the numbers, but that makes no logical sense; a single number, that just happens to be a scientific number, shouldn't require redundant parentheses. This is just one of the many things Gnome-calculator just screws up completely from a usability point of view. (The others being unable to copy/paste results into other programs like Calc because it's all malformed.)Mark Jeronimus– Mark Jeronimus2025-07-01 18:52:05 +00:00Commented Jul 1 at 18:52