View a library of custom programs that can be loaded onto graphing calculators, including productivity tools, reference materials, games, and interactive applications, such as prom proposals.

Try out an emulated version of the TI-84 Plus CE, the graphing calculator released by Texas Instruments in 2015.

Explore galleries of featured submissions from the Desmos Art Contest—a yearly competition where students from around the world submit original work made with graphing calculator tools.

As of 2025, the College Board has banned the use of calculators with computer algebra systems on the SAT and PSAT.

Despite the abundance of free graphing software, Texas Instruments' de facto monopoly and the continued demand for its use in standardized testing have kept the cost and design of graphing calculators largely unchanged for decades.

Slide rules—ruler-sized mechanical calculators with a component that slides out to show relationships between numbers—were used by engineers at NASA during the Apollo missions.

Explore over 30,000 Olympiad-level math problems from around the world.

VisiCalc was the first electronic spreadsheet, released with Apple II's personal computer in 1979

Before 1979, managers were essentially information processors working off paper ledgers. Scenario modeling was slow, manual, and expensive. Companies were understood as organizations that built things with financial analysis as secondary. VisiCalc made calculation so cheap that you could work iteratively, setting out forecasts and tweaking assumptions until you got the answer you wanted. Oks argues It created a new way of seeing the world.

Explore an online gallery highlighting the importance of graphical user interfaces

Before the Macintosh, computers were primarily used in offices and required users to type complex commands to perform tasks. Apple followed the device with the LaserWriter printer, bringing graphic production to at-home artists and designers.

On a basic calculator, the keys that start with M, such as M+ and M-, are memory keys that allow users to store and modify a number in the device's memory.

Anthropic's Claude Science is an AI workbench connected to more than 60 scientific databases, designed to assist scientific research in molecular and cellular biology and drug discovery.

Slick interfaces and bundling helped solidify Excel as the corporate planning tool

First initiated in the 1980s, the Excel spreadsheet built off predecessors like Lotus and VisiCalc, leveraging a novel graphic interface to entice new customers and packaging the program with other Microsoft Office products. Forty years later, the tool faces challenges from Google and AI, but retains devoted users.

Designed in 1937 by Harvard graduate student Howard H. Aiken, the 'Harvard Calculator' was used by the US Navy to solve advanced physics problems.

Browse a database of every 'Simpsons' chalkboard gag

A key component of the intro for "The Simpsons" is Bart writing on the chalkboard as punishment for misbehaving. In nearly every episode, the message on the board is different. This fan-assembled repository allows you to view screencaps for nearly everyone.

Experience games that explore Nobel Prize-winning work

Inspired by the educators who set laureates on their path, the Nobel Foundation has created a library of interactive activities for the general public. These allow users to make groundbreaking discoveries, showing that such work is accessible to all.

Create digital maps of Earth with custom sketches and labels

In this interactive, users can apply layers to various base maps to display natural and human features, including geological activity, biomes, ocean currents, population densities, and light pollution. Custom legends, markers, and drawings can be used to highlight prominent features.

Explore a visual history of the Windows operating system

Named after the windows that separate different applications, the operating system’s first version came preinstalled with Calculator, Paint, and Reversi. There was no Windows 9 to avoid compatibility issues with legacy code searching for Windows 95 and 98 files via a “windows9” query.

Explore an optical table to create quantum physics experiments

This interactive teaches users to create quantum experiments through lessons resembling video game levels. Users can also use the virtual lab to visualize landmark quantum experiments like entanglement, teleportation, cryptography, and quantum computing, or create their own experiments with drag-and-drop elements.

Safely explore historic viruses and other malicious software in the Malware Museum.

The first compiler to facilitate communication with computers was developed by Grace Hopper

The A-0 program linker automatically translated mathematical symbols into machine-readable binary code. Although it took two years for computer executives to get on board with the idea, the technology was foundational to future programming languages that allowed computers to understand commands written in word-based languages.

Explore Anthropic Academy, which provides courses on using Claude

The online courses include Claude Code in Action, which teaches software developers how to integrate Claude Code into existing workflows; Claude 101, to learn how Claude can be used to complete everyday tasks; and an AI Fluency series to help educators, instructional designers, and students learn to apply AI in academic settings.

Explore interactive simulations of strange attractors, the graphs that help visualize chaos

Although simple, linear equations reach an explicit value for a given input, such as *f(x) \= x* + 1 equaling 4 when *x* equals 3, some chaotic, nonlinear systems tend to evolve towards multiple values simultaneously. These simulations allow users to observe the unusual mathematical artifacts created by systems as their outputs evolve toward these distinct values.

Unsatisfied with the designs provided by an Apple engineer, Steve Jobs designed the original Mac calculator in about 10 minutes.

FLOW-MATIC was the first programming language resembling the English language

As part of the team working on UNIVAC—the first commercially produced electronic digital computer in the US—Grace Hopper helped develop the system that enabled nonprogrammers and businesspeople without a strong mathematics background to use the machine effectively, thereby enhancing the computer's commercial viability.

Explore 1,800+ exercises with an interactive muscle map that lets you click any muscle to see targeted exercises, including video tutorials and written instructions.

One of the first mechanical calculators—the Pascaline—was built in the 1640s by French mathematician Blaise Pascal to help his father, who worked as a tax collector.

Get lost in these historical libraries

The internet has changed a lot about how we learn, explore new ideas, and conduct research, particularly when it comes to the spaces we learn in. While few of us would trade our smartphones for a walk in a historical library, a walk through some of the beautifully designed cathedrals of learning could remind us to put them down sometimes. Explore 10 of the world's magnificent libraries with this quick video survey.

An overview of Linux, from the foundational program to its related operating systems

The Linux kernel, which bridges hardware and software, serves as the basis for many fully customizable operating systems, whose components can be modified or removed to optimize performance or reduce bloat on devices with limited resources. This has made these OSes useful for low-power devices like smart thermostats, as well as for powerful supercomputers that require computational efficiency.

Play an incremental game that teaches the history of particle physics

Developed during the CERN Summer Student Webfest 2014, this game tasks you with building the reputation of your particle accelerator as you discover particles and hire staff to collect data. A historical breakdown accompanies each discovery, allowing you to recreate the timeline of the field.

Explore a library of data files for 3D printing

Data files are organized by category, including gadgets, learning, and fashion, with most available in .stl format, which is native to computer-aided design software, and presliced. Some files are also available in .3mf, an open-source file format developed as a universal standard for high-fidelity 3D printing.

View a gallery of images and videos of over 200 types of cells

Funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, the Cell Image Library houses over 60,000 pieces of media, including microscopic photographs, time-lapse videos of cellular activity, and 3D reconstructions of organic processes.

Microsoft Excel is used by over a billion people worldwide

The upstart computer software company Microsoft launched its columns-and-rows spreadsheet program in 1985, enabling users to sort information, create charts, and perform calculations with minimal friction. It would be coupled with Microsoft Word and PowerPoint in 1990 as part of the Microsoft Office for Windows.

Explore an interactive periodic table of each element's history, properties, and uses.

Explore a collection of moon interactives from NASA, including a 3D lunar surface explorer, a tool for classifying moon rocks, and an interactive map for observing the moon each day of the year.

Explore a database of free games you can play in your web browser, including classics like Mahjongg.

An overview of 12 fundamental types of algorithms and the uses for each

These include search algorithms to quickly process and find important information, cryptographic algorithms to secure communications, randomized algorithms—such as Monte Carlo simulations for estimating probabilities of outcomes—and greedy algorithms, which make optimal choices based on available data in a step-by-step fashion, as seen in navigation apps.

Explore an interactive database of critical minerals and their uses

Columbia University's Critical Materials Monitor identifies 56 elements required for the clean energy transition. The tool provides details on the reserves, production, and trade of each element, alongside what materials are needed for each technology (desktop only).

Practice encrypting and decrypting text using an online library of ciphers

This tool provides users with customizable protocols, including Caesar, Affine, and Vigenère ciphers, to hide messages in transformed text and convert them back into legible formats. Mechanisms are also available to convert text into other communication languages, such as Morse code and URL encoding.

A visual guide to identifying baseball's pitches, from common pitches like 'fastball' and the 'change up' to specialty types, like 'cutter' and 'slurve.'

Explore an interactive visualization of the solar system

This tool allows you to view the orbits of planets, dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, and other significant objects in the solar system. Clicking on an object reveals key facts and historical data.

Explore demonstrations of hundreds of viruses and other malware in action

On their YouTube channel, Malware historian Daniel White has documented what happens when various types of malware—mostly from the 1980s and 90s—run on a computer or Nokia cell phone. The demonstrations were safely conducted within virtual machines—older operating systems run within contained windows of modern software, resembling a picture-in-picture setup.

AI excels at assisting with structured tasks involving logistics and planning

Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity can help organize chaotic calendars, troubleshoot bedtime routines, and assist with salary planning and moving. However, specific quotes, like insurance, and local cost comparisons can be flawed since AI draws from nonlocalized datasets.

The sophisticated math jokes of 'The Simpsons'

"The Simpsons" has always been a slyly sophisticated show and has featured more than a few references to complex mathematical concepts. That's largely due to its writers' room, which has featured more than one writer who studied math before transitioning to comedy.

'Games That Weren't' preserves lost video game history

Since 1999, this large, online, nonprofit archive has saved the stories of cancelled and unreleased video games. See prototypes, developer history, and assets for various computers and consoles of all ages, including gems like Cartoon Network's "Toon Jam!"

The story of two female programmers running the simulations behind chaos theory's discovery

Margaret Hamilton and Ellen Fetter worked on MIT's 800-pound Royal McBee LGP-30 computer, which was fed binary code on paper tape to perform computations. Among the computations performed were those involving equations describing the motion of gas in a circulating fluid for Edward Lorenz, widely considered the father of chaos theory.

Type any prompt and watch Craiyon—the free AI image generator that began in 2021 as DALL·E mini—turn words into pictures.

Explore an emulated demo of Windows 95 Microsoft Plus to try your hand at Solitaire, 3D Pinball Space Cadet, and other classic Windows applications.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Psychedelic compounds: a visual library

However psychedelic experiences manifest, they all begin with the presence of psychoactive compounds. Learn about their various chemical compositions in this structural library of psychedelic compounds. Clicking on an entry will take readers to a new page where they can learn about the chemistry and pharmacology of each compound, as well as the drug's possible applications.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

Explore an interactive timeline of Earth's 4.5-billion-year history to visualize shifting landmasses and oceans, view the locations of significant asteroid impacts, and learn about major geological and biological events.