This is no ordinary calculator.

This is the QAMA or the “Quick Approximate Mental Arithmetic” calculator. Designed by scientist-physicist Ilan Samson, it’s designed to make students — and heck, adults, too — *actually smarter* in math.

At first, it seems like it behaves like a regular calculator…except that before the QAMA gives you the answer, IT MAKES YOU ESTIMATE IT FIRST, which means the QAMA relies on *you*to know basic math, such as multiplication tables or how basic exponents work, for example.

If you estimate close to the answer (and the “closeness” is relative, depending on the level of difficulty of the problem), the QAMA will then give you the correct answer. If you are not close (again, relative to difficulty), then the QAMA makes you estimate again.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t done calculus since high school, so this calculator intrigues me.

Thoughts??

[Source: QAMA Calculator / Via Forbes]