I've been writing an algebra editor. It automates much of the details of doing maths while letting you select or move equation fragments. It has been designed

I've been writing an algebra editor. It automates much of the details of doing maths while letting you select or move equation fragments. It has been designed around solving back-of-the-envelope calculations so it starts and runs quickly, it's cross platform (a single executable Java *.jar file) and open source (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ket/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/ket/). Once you get good at computer programming or maths on paper, problem solving becomes relaxed and automatic. Hopefully the same is true of Ket. Just as you would write an essay by repeatedly redrafting it, real-world maths problems often require as much effort be put into understanding and clarifying problems as are required to solve them. And yet existing maths programs assume you know the question and need only break it into a series of standard steps (integrate, solve etc.) and leave the details to the computer. When doing maths on paper, you learn to recognize fragments and how to move them around. The intuitions are quite different. The user interface lets you add functions and symbols which can alternatively be written in plain text, e.g. "sin(\alpha)^2=sqrt(x)". Equations are viewed in conventional mathematics notion and are updated quickly and smoothly. Click-and-dragging equation fragments lets you solve or substitute for variables and - with practice - perform algebra by various keyboard shortcuts.