Summary

These Excel 7.0 spreadhseets perform several useful functions, and some are also entertaining. To use them, you must have Microsoft Excel 7.0 installed on your system. These programs are © Copyright 1996, P. Lutus. They are in the CareWare  program, so you don't have to pay for them, at least not with money. To download these programs, simply point to the link at the left and right-click your mouse. Then select "Open This" (Netscape) or "Save Target as ..." (Microsoft Internet Explorer). If you choose to downloaded your choices in ZIP format, you will need to unZIP them — they are in compressed form. To do this, you need a program called WinZip . If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 Final Release, you may choose to click on the "Excel format" column below and the spreadhseet will run in place (if you have Microsoft Office, that is). This download takes longer, because the files are uncompressed.

Serious ...

ZIP format	Excel format	Description
Web List Creator	weblist.xls	This spreadsheet contains an HTML generator program that converts a boring list of spreadsheet data into a nice-looking HTML page. See my Favorite Places list for an example of its output.
Fast Chart	fastchart.xls	This spreadsheet generates a chart of simple mathematical functions very fast (on a fast machine, anyway). It has mouse controls that interactively change the chart's appearance in real time. It is intended to give math students an intuitive, visual sense of the behavior of mathematical functions. For a background on the use of computers in math education, see my article Computer Math .
Unit Conversions	conv.xls	This spreadsheet provides an easy way to convert units from one basis to another. It includes Length, Area, Volume, Mass, Metric Units (for us dumb Americans), Time and Temperature. Also see my online JavaScript Unit Conversions .
Linear Interpolation	interpolation.xls	This spreadsheet performs the linear interpolation function. Given two x,y data pairs, it calculates the necessary constants to find any intermediate values along an imaginary straight line that connects them. This is important for students to learn, as it has many practical uses in the real world outside the classroom. Another way of saying this: if given two data pairs, for the function y = mx + b , this spreadsheet finds m and b , and these values can then be applied to other points on the line.

... and fun

NOTE: These two spreadhseets won't run correctly if downloaded in place in .XLS format, probably because of an MSIE 3.0 bug. You may want to click on the Excel format links and save the files from Excel right away, and only run them outside the browser.

ZIP format	Excel format	Description
Earth-Moon Orbit	orbit.xls	This spreadsheet calculates the path a spacecraft has to travel to go from Earth to the Moon and back again. The user gets to choose the initial position and velocity and discover whether NASA has a very hard job doing this sort of thing. It has nice graphics — a picture of the Earth and the Moon form a backdrop for an animated, orbiting spacecraft.
Lissajous Patterns	lissajous.xls	This spreadsheet creates a nice animation of a constantly changing Lissajous pattern created by two sine functions. You get to choose the "frequencies" of the sine functions, thereby creating any number of interesting moving patterns. Some of my friends tell me they can't stop playing with it. The rest I haven't heard from.