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Scientific Calculator with steps

Tap the keypad or type an expression, pick degrees or radians and press Calculate. The answer appears as clean math with an outline of how it was evaluated.

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Answer

Enter your numbers or pick an example — the answer and the steps appear here instantly.

What the keypad covers

Everything a handheld scientific calculator does for homework, in your browser.

  • Trig in degrees or radians

    sin, cos and tan plus their inverses. Flip the DEG/RAD switch and inverse trig answers come back in that same unit, so asin(0.5) gives 30 in degree mode.

  • Logs, roots and powers

    Natural log is ln and log means base 10. The keypad also has √, x², xʸ, n!, %, π and e, plus brackets for grouping.

  • Exact fractions when they exist

    Plain fraction arithmetic keeps an exact form: 1/3 + 1/6 shows 1/2 next to the decimal 0.5.

  • Complex results shown

    Square roots of negatives are not an error here. √(−4) evaluates to 2i, so you can see exactly where a real answer stops existing.

  • Ans, AC and delete

    Ans reuses the last result in your next expression, delete removes one character and AC clears the whole line.

  • About 12 significant digits

    Results are shown to roughly twelve significant digits. Anything rounded carries the ≈ sign and a Rounded tag on the answer card.

How to evaluate an expression

  1. Enter the expression

    Tap the keys or type straight into the field, e.g. sin(30) + sqrt(16) * 2^3. Brackets work just as you would write them on paper.

  2. Choose DEG or RAD

    Degrees suit most geometry homework, while radians are the native unit of calculus. The choice affects every trig function in the line.

  3. Press Calculate

    The result renders as math with its outline: the expression as read, the angle mode, the log convention, the order of operations and the result.

  4. Go deeper when you need to

    The free answer comes from our own code running in your browser. Pick “Explain step by step” when you want the AI Math Solver to write out the reasoning in full.

Order of operations, and the slips behind wrong answers

Every scientific calculator follows the same priority: brackets first, then exponents and roots, then multiplication and division from left to right, then addition and subtraction from left to right. In the US this is often remembered as PEMDAS. Functions such as sin, ln and √ act on the value right after them, so sin(30) + 1 means take the sine first and add 1 afterwards.

Three slips cause most surprise results. The first is the angle unit: sin(30) is 0.5 in degrees but about −0.988 in radians, because 30 radians is almost five full turns. The second is a missing bracket: −3² equals −9, since the exponent applies before the minus sign, while (−3)² equals 9. The third is a crowded denominator: 6/(2 × 3) is 1, whereas 6/2 × 3 is 9, because division and multiplication run left to right.

Logarithms carry their own convention trap. Here, as on most handheld calculators, log means base 10 and ln means base e, so log(1000) = 3 and ln(e²) = 2. Some textbooks and programming languages write log for the natural logarithm, so check which one your course uses before comparing answers.

Frequently asked questions

Your calculator is probably in radian mode. In degrees sin(30) = 0.5; in radians the input means 30 radians and the result is about −0.988. Switch to DEG and press Calculate again.

Yes. Instead of an error you get the complex result, for example √(−4) = 2i. If your course only works with real numbers, read that as a sign the expression has no real value.

It gives a decimal to about 12 significant digits, plus an exact fraction when the input is plain fraction arithmetic such as 1/3 + 1/6 = 1/2. Rounded results are marked ≈ and tagged Rounded.

Yes. The keypad, the answer and the step outline run in your browser with our own code, need no account and send nothing to a server. Only the optional AI explanation is metered: it is included in the Pro plans* (*fair use: up to 300 runs a day across the writing, study and code tools), costs 2 credits without a plan, and signed-out visitors can preview its opening for free.

Not here; the calculator only reads what you type or tap. The AI Math Solver accepts photos, and the explanation button can send your typed expression there whenever you want worked reasoning.

No. The AI Math Solver writes careful reasoning but can still make mistakes, so compare it with the calculator's own result and with your working. Use it to learn and check, and follow your course's rules on AI help.

Related calculators and solvers

Got an expression to evaluate?

Type it, choose the angle unit and read the answer alongside its evaluation outline.

Evaluate an expression
  • Trig, logs, roots and factorials
  • DEG and RAD modes
  • Free, right in your browser