What kind of math calculator/tool do you wish existed but can't find online?
Hey everyone — I’m working on a personal side project where I build free calculators for everyday and academic use. It started as a hobby (I'm a solo dev), but now I’m trying to make something genuinely useful for students, researchers, teachers, and curious minds alike.
I’ve already made tools like a Perfect Egg Boiling Calculator (yes, seriously), due date predictors, finance tools, and statistical calculators — but now I’m wondering:
What’s a specific type of math calculator you wish existed? Something too obscure or niche for mainstream sites like WolframAlpha or Desmos? Maybe a calculator that automates a repetitive step in a bigger problem? Or a tool that helps visualize something you always had trouble wrapping your head around?
I’d love to hear:
What you’d want it to do
Who would use it (students, engineers, math hobbyists, etc.)
What’s missing from existing tools
This could be theoretical, geometric, applied math, anything. I’m not a company, just a solo dev trying to make cool tools — if there's a gap, I’d love to build something for it and keep it free to use.
Thanks in advance!
https://calculatequick.com/
Awesome, I would pay a bit for this if you want for it to be open source in a Github repo (MIT license preferred).
Inputs: total fertility rate (1.6, for example), fiat amount per ton of CO2 (say, $200), total offspring CO2 emissions [1]
Output (from the above inputs multiplied together): cost to offset the carbon emissions based on total fertility rate per person
Stretch goal would be the ability to model multiple scenarios simultaneously.
[1] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541
I can do that.
Clarify some things for me:
“Offspring emissions” — is that just lifetime emissions of one child, or multiple generations (kids + grandkids)?
Should fertility rate be treated as a simple multiplier, or model population growth (e.g. TFR^n)?
Do you want attribution across generations (50%, 25%, etc.)?
Include discounting or just raw totals?
Outputs — just total cost, or also show emissions and breakdown?
Are values user-supplied, or should I include presets (e.g. emissions per person by region)?
Any other details?
Appreciate this.
> “Offspring emissions” — is that just lifetime emissions of one child, or multiple generations (kids + grandkids)?
One generation, as it is difficult to predict with certainty multigenerational fertility (due to social and cultural effects: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03135...).
> Should fertility rate be treated as a simple multiplier, or model population growth (e.g. TFR^n)?
Simple multiplier, again modeling future fertility is challenging (although it appears it will remain on a declining trajectory per https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/dependency-and-dep...).
> Do you want attribution across generations (50%, 25%, etc.)?
Unnecessary at this time.
> Include discounting or just raw totals?
I am open to your thoughts on this. Raw totals are helpful to me immediately from a valuation perspective, but discounting might be interesting from a visualization perspective. The challenge here is how fertility rate and annual estimated emissions might change over time, the latter based on country level decarbonization/per capita CO2 emissions rate of change over time, forward looking.
> Outputs — just total cost, or also show emissions and breakdown?
Both please.
> Are values user-supplied, or should I include presets (e.g. emissions per person by region)?
User supplied is fine, as that would be the least amount of effort I believe, but if you wanted presets, I can provide most recent total fertility rate and per capita CO2 emissions by country.
Thanks again for your help with this experiment. The goal is to create a valuation modeling tool for fertility through the carbon markets.