Mathcracker: Free math help for students and teachers
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Mathcracker.com is a cornucopia of math tools, calculators, solvers, and tutorials all in one
place that is a one-stop solution for the vast majority of math calculations and operations that
the student or professional needs to perform, whether for assignments, theses, reports, or
professional documents. The tools run the gamut from basic to advanced math calculations,
with 120 tools and growing. The solvers, graphing tools, and “math cracks”, which are
Mathcracker’s signature form of plain English tutorials, are all accessible from an easily
navigable menu bar with drop down menus. The number and high quality of the tools are
quite impressive, and all the tools are available for free!
To give an idea of the range of tools you can choose from, starting with the categories of
algebra, calculus, statistics, or probability calculators, you are then led to a variety of
calculators and solvers under the same category. You’ll find calculators for cross product, dot
product, permutation coefficient, factorial of a number, absolute value, algebraic expression,
angle conversion between degrees and radians, arithmetic sequences, area and volume of a
circle, cone, cube, and cylinder, and the list goes on and on. For probability and statistics,
you’ll find 11 pages of tools, including calculators for chi square test for goodness of fit,
Kruskal-Wallis test, Lamda coefficient, critical Chi square values, uniform probability
calculator, ANOVA, Cramer’s V, Z test, F test for the equality of two population variances,
relative risk, odds ratio, effect size Cohen’s d, binomial probability, and many more. There are
graphing tools for bar charts, box plots, functions, histograms, line charts, pie charts, scatter
plots, time series, and many more. To list all the tools here would take several pages, so the
recommended approach is just to go see for yourself.
Each tool comes with clear instructions on what it does, how to use it and what information to
enter. To use a calculator or solver, you enter the information you want into the appropriate
labeled form field boxes in the calculator. Each element of the calculator is labeled so you
know what information to enter and where to type it in. Upon pushing a bright yellow
“calculate” button, you are provided with the solution along with a brief explanation of the
background of the concept you are working with and how to interpret the result. If for any
reason you did not enter the right information or you are missing information, upon clicking
“calculate”, you will be presented with a message in red indicating to you what you are
missing so you can check your information. This is really helpful because sometimes
beginners or the less well-versed in math don’t necessarily know exactly what type of
information they need to solve a given problem, so the tool nudges you in the right direction.
To understand the background of the people who created this site, according to the designers
of the site, who include PhD’s with backgrounds in mathematics, statistics, engineering, and
education, the site emerged out of a desire to make math transparent and accessible to
people from many different backgrounds, including those with strong math skills as well as
those who are not so comfortable performing high level mathematics. Currently, the site is
used by students and professionals all over the world as a cornerstone math resource. They
have been linked to by major universities, teachers’ personal blogs, and included in
classroom curriculum.
The ease of use and completeness of the tools makes them compatible with the needs of a
wide variety of people and projects, and the solution and graphic outputs are of a high quality
and can be used in reports and for educational purposes. Far and away, this is an excellent
and advantageous resource for anyone who needs to perform calculus, algebra, statistics or
probability calculations for nearly any conceivable purpose, and can replace many of the
functionalities of other proprietary software programs.
