Sharing your HP calculator

[Frozen North]

Sharing your HP calculator

Flashback to 1977 when I was an undergraduate taking a mid level physics course and using my HP-25 for assistance. RPN calculators were rare in those days and few students had seen one. I have to admit to being amused when someone would borrow my HP and then become mystified while looking for the equals key.

One day during the physics lab, a pretty young woman and fellow student asked to borrow my HP-25 to check her work. I handed it to her and waited for the usual result.

But instead she worked through an instance of the quantum wave equation while expertly handling the calculator's enter, swap, and roll keys like a pro.

I learned a lesson that day.

Alas, she already had a boyfriend.