Table with NO scientific notation

Questions
1

Hello! I am trying to create a discovery activity on laws of exponents where students observe patterns of repeated multiplication to generalize a rule. I’ve noticed that when you type an expression into a table, like (101010)(10*10), the table automatically gives you the scientific notation version of it. Can you turn this off? I want the expressions to STAY as expressions so students can see the pattern, and realize (10^3)(10^2) is actually 10^5.

Additionally, I’m wondering if there is a way to create a self-checking table that would recognize an expression like (101010)(10*10) as the correct answer instead of simply the numerical value 100000.

For reference, here is the activity I’ve got so far. The tables are on slides 2,9, and 16.

2

You can disable the evaluation to make the scientific notation stop appearing. For slide 2, you can disable row 2, column 2 by typing in:

cellDisableEvaluation(2,2): true

To check if that cell has the correct expression, you can do this:

correct: table1.cellNumericValue(2,2)=10000000 and countNumberUsage(table1.cellContent(2,2),10)=7

This is just for that particular cell, so you could get creative with how you want to do the checking, but hopefully it’s a start!

3

Yes, this is a great start, thank you so much!! Do you know if there is any way to check that their exponents are correct as well, so making sure they typed in 10^5 instead of just 100000?

4

You bet, use the countNumberUsage again. Have it check for one 10 and one 5.

countNumberUsage(table1.cellContent(2,3),10)=1 and countNumberUsage(table1.cellContent(2,3), 5)=1
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5

YES okay I see now… you definitely have to be creative, holy cow. Thank you, kindly.

6

With countNumberUsage you gotta be careful and check for edge cases. Here you might also want to make sure that the total number usage is 2, as something like 5(10)2000 will also give you a right answer.

7

Good point, Jay. I would also include another check to make sure the expression’s numberValue=10000.

8

In this case the numeric value would also be correct. Essentially, every expression with a single 5 and a single 10 that is equivalent to 100000 would be correct, so counNumberUsage(input.latex) = 2 can be used to ensure that there is:

One ten
One five
Only one ten and one five
Equal to 100000

2 Likes
9

Thanks for problem solving with me! Testing this out now.

10

I didn’t know countNumberUsage could be used to count the number of numbers in an expression too. This will be helpful in the future. Thanks!

1 Like
11

Thank you for making this! I was making the same things, had the same problems and came her to find a solution!! I appreciate you for beating me to the chase!