Scientific Calculator
A full scientific calculator — trigonometry, logarithms, powers, roots, factorials, constants, memory and degree or radian modes — built on the same expression engine as our calculus tools. Free, runs in your browser.
Scientific Calculator
How to Use the Scientific Calculator
Type or tap
Build an expression with the buttons or type it straight into the display with your keyboard. Press Enter or the = key to evaluate it.
Choose degrees or radians
Toggle DEG or RAD before using the trigonometric functions — the indicator at the top of the screen shows the current mode, and the inverse functions return angles in the same unit.
Use functions and constants
Powers, roots, logs, the exponential, factorials, absolute value, π and e are all one tap away, and you can nest them with brackets to any depth.
Reuse with memory and history
Store a value with MS, recall it with MR, and add or subtract with M+ and M−. Ans inserts your last result, and every calculation appears in the history below — tap any line to reuse its answer.
One Calculator, the Whole Toolkit
From Arithmetic to Transcendental Functions
A scientific calculator is the everyday workhorse of mathematics, science and engineering, and what sets it apart from a basic four-function calculator is its command of the functions that describe the real world. Trigonometric functions — sine, cosine and tangent, and their inverses — turn angles into ratios and back, the mathematics of waves, circles, navigation and oscillation. Logarithms and the exponential function handle growth and decay, sound levels, pH, earthquake magnitudes and compound interest, compressing enormous ranges into manageable numbers. Powers and roots, factorials for counting, the constants π and e, and absolute value round out the set. This calculator brings all of them together with full respect for the order of operations, so a typed expression like 2 + 3 × 4 evaluates the multiplication first, exactly as mathematical convention requires, and brackets let you group operations to any depth. You can drive it entirely from the keyboard or tap the buttons — whichever suits the moment.
What is unusual about this particular calculator is what runs underneath it. Rather than a one-off chain of operations, it is powered by the very same expression engine that drives our derivative, integral and limit calculators — a small, deterministic parser that reads your whole expression into a structured form and evaluates it precisely, in your browser, with nothing sent to a server. That shared foundation means the calculator understands genuine mathematical notation: implicit multiplication so 2π works, correct right-associative powers so that 2^3^2 is 2^9, nested functions, and the degree-or-radian distinction applied consistently across every trigonometric function and its inverse. A toggle switches the trig mode and the display shows which is active, removing the single most common source of calculator error. Memory keys let you stash and recall a running value, and a history log keeps your recent results so you can build on them — tap any past line to drop its answer back into the display.
"Order of operations is not a quirk to memorise — it is what lets a single written line mean exactly one number. A good calculator honours it without you thinking about it."
The Mathematics You Reach For
The functions on this keypad map onto an enormous range of real problems. Trigonometry computes distances and angles in surveying, the trajectory of a projectile, the components of a force, and the behaviour of every alternating signal in electronics and audio. The exponential and logarithm model radioactive decay, population growth, cooling, and the way money compounds over time; the decibel scale, the Richter scale and pH are all logarithmic by design. Factorials and the constant e underpin probability and statistics, while π appears anywhere a circle or a cycle does. Because the calculator keeps full floating-point precision and applies the order of operations faithfully, you can trust a long nested expression to come out right the first time, rather than having to break it into pieces and track intermediate results by hand. Whether you are working through homework, checking a result at work, converting between degrees and radians, or exploring how these functions behave, this scientific calculator gives you a complete, precise and private tool — and it sits alongside the rest of our mathematics suite, so a derivative, an integral, a matrix or a statistical summary is only a click away.
The HP-35 killed the slide rule in 1972
A scientific calculator respects the order of operations automatically.
Degrees vs radians is the most common source of trig errors.
Logarithms turn multiplication into addition — the original calculating shortcut.
The constant e ≈ 2.71828 is the base of natural growth.
The HP-35 of 1972 was the first handheld scientific calculator.
π ≈ 3.14159 appears wherever there is a circle or a cycle.
Before calculators, engineers used the slide rule — a logarithmic scale.
A factorial grows faster than any exponential.
This calculator shares its engine with our derivative and integral tools.
Everything runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Yes. Click the display and type a full expression — digits, operators, brackets and function names like sin, log and sqrt all work — then press Enter to evaluate. You can also build expressions entirely with the buttons, or mix the two.
- Use the DEG and RAD buttons. The active mode is shown at the top of the display, and it applies to every trigonometric function and its inverse — so in degree mode sin(30) is 0.5 and asin(1) is 90. Checking this indicator avoids the most common calculator mistake.
- Yes. The calculator parses the whole expression and applies standard precedence — powers before multiplication and division, which come before addition and subtraction — with brackets overriding as expected. So 2 + 3 × 4 is 14, not 20, and you can nest brackets to any depth.
- MS stores the current value in memory, MR recalls it into the display, and M+ and M− add or subtract the current value to or from memory. MC clears it. A small marker appears when memory holds a non-zero value. It is handy for carrying a sub-total between calculations.
- Ans inserts your previous result into the current expression, so you can chain calculations — for example, work out one value, then use it inside the next without retyping. Every result also appears in the history list, and tapping a history line reuses its answer.
- Tap x! after a number for its factorial, for example 5! = 120. For powers, use the x² button for squares, or the xʸ (caret) button for any exponent — so 2^10 gives 1024. Powers are right-associative, so 2^3^2 is read as 2^(3^2).
- ln is the natural logarithm, to base e ≈ 2.718, while log on this calculator is the common logarithm, to base 10. So ln(e) is 1 and log(1000) is 3. The exponential button eˣ is the inverse of ln.
- No. Every calculation runs in your browser on a small built-in engine — the same one that powers our calculus tools — and nothing is uploaded to a server or third-party library. It works offline once the page has loaded.
- Usually because of an unmatched bracket or a missing operand — for example a function with no value inside its brackets. Check that every opening bracket has a closing one and that operators have numbers on both sides, and the expression will evaluate.
- The factorial key is defined for whole numbers from 0 upwards only (0! = 1, 5! = 120); the gamma-function extension to fractions is not implemented, so a non-integer factorial is reported as undefined rather than guessed. Everything else is evaluated in IEEE 754 double precision — the number format every browser and most handheld calculators use, good to 15–17 significant digits — and displayed rounded to 12. Two conventions to know: unary minus binds more loosely than a power, so −2^2 is −4, matching written mathematics; and log means base 10 while ln means base e, the handheld-calculator convention (the ISO 80000-2 symbols are lg and ln).
Method & sources
How it computes
The typed or tapped expression is parsed by recursive descent into an expression tree, then evaluated in IEEE 754 binary64 arithmetic: standard precedence with brackets to any depth, right-associative exponentiation (2^3^2 = 512), unary minus binding more loosely than a power (−2² = −4), implicit multiplication (2π), trigonometry in the selected degree or radian mode, ln and base-10 log, exp, abs, hyperbolics, integer factorial, π and e. Results show twelve significant figures.
What this tool implements
- ISO 80000-2:2019 names ln for the natural logarithm and lg for base 10; this keypad follows the handheld-calculator convention of labelling base 10 'log', and the FAQ states the difference rather than leaving it to be discovered.
- Right-associative exponentiation and a unary minus that binds more loosely than the power, as in written mathematics and in ECMA-262 — so 2^3^2 is 512 and −2^2 is −4, not 4.
- Factorial defined only on non-negative integers (0! = 1, 5! = 120). The gamma-function extension to fractions is not implemented and a non-integer argument is reported as an undefined result rather than guessed.
- IEEE 754-2019 binary64 throughout: 15-17 significant decimal digits carried, twelve displayed; an infinite result and a not-a-number result are reported in words instead of being printed as a value.
Sources
- International Organization for Standardization. ISO 80000-2:2019, Quantities and units — Part 2: Mathematics. 2nd ed. Geneva: ISO; 2019. Exponential and logarithmic functions: lg (base 10), ln (base e), lb (base 2).
- IEEE. IEEE Std 754-2019, IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic. New York: IEEE; 2019. The binary64 format and its 15-17 significant decimal digits.
- Ecma International. ECMA-262: ECMAScript Language Specification. Geneva: Ecma International; 2026. The Math object and the right-associative exponentiation operator. https://ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/standar…
- Aho AV, Lam MS, Sethi R, Ullman JD. Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools. 2nd ed. Boston: Pearson/Addison-Wesley; 2006. §4.4 Top-down parsing (recursive descent and predictive parsing).
What can make this go out of date
- None at runtime — every function is evaluated in the browser from the built-in floating-point library. No rates, tables or published constants are fetched, so nothing on this page expires.
Pick up where you left off
Stored only in this browser — never sent to our servers.