Can you really rely on an app to do your maths homework?

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Matt Parker,  mathematics department at Queen Mary, University of London summarizes, "A promo video suggests that PhotoMath is the ultimate cheat’s tool. So is this the end of algebra? A mathematician puts it through its paces.

The video below shows a textbook being flipped open and a smartphone pointed at a dense page of calculations. But this isn’t someone Instagramming their homework; the phone scans the equations on its screen and solves them, each solution popping up instantly with a satisfying click.

PhotoMath from MicroBLINK on Vimeo.

The footage – created to promote a new algebra-solving app called PhotoMath – has been passed around online both by people lamenting the downfall of education and students gleefully ready to automate their homework.

It looked too good to be true. As a maths enthusiast with no shortage of equations to solve, I grabbed some algebra books off my shelf and took PhotoMath for a test lap.

The easy
First, I tried some of the problems in a modern primary school maths book. Faced with worded problems and maths being used in context, the app was helpless. It could not help Choi work out how many birthday cards he had if his family gave him seven and his friends gave him 16. And I don’t think Sheena and Grant ever worked out who won their game of darts. But I eventually found some classic arithmetic addition problems, and PhotoMath solved them all with ease.
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Related links   
MicroBlink Launches PhotoMath To Solve Math Equations With A Phone   
Welcome to Think Maths

Source: The Guardian