Imagine you're performing a task that requires you do math. You have your calculator, so it should be easy. Should be. Except due to unforeseen circumstances, nearly all of the buttons on your calculator aren't working. Are you metaphorically dead in the water?
If that task was taking a math test, that scenario might describe your own personal nightmare scenario. But it may not have to be. Mathematician Andrzej Odrzywołek wondered what minimum number of buttons, between numbers and mathematical functions, would be needed to perform every typical operation for any calculation on a scientific calculator. At first, he narrowed it down to just four buttons, but then took it a step further and created a new function button to replace three of those, which reduces the number of working buttons needed to perform any calculation down to just two buttons.
In the following Numberphile video, James Grimes talks through how that's possible.
The only two buttons you need are the number "1" and another to perform the exponential-minus-logarithm function "eml". The only problem now is that every calculation you might need to do becomes pretty involved. For example, here's the sequence Grimes shows you would need to enter on your two-button calculator to solve the problem "1 + 1":
eml(1, eml(eml(eml(1, eml(eml(1, eml(1, eml(1, 1))), 1)), eml(1, 1)), 1))
If you want to use the mathematical constant pi, you can do that too. Just enter the formulation Grimes presents at the 16:30 mark of the video into your two-button calculator....
Unfortunately, we couldn't find any two-button calculators available for sale anywhere. But we did find an online-only version that let's you enter the calculation you want to do, then uses AI to generate the sequence of keystrokes needed on a virtual Odrzywołek two-key calculator to perform the math!
As you test drive it, remember that we never said anything about a two-button only calculator as being easier to use. It is, never-the-less, a prime example of outside the box thinking!
Reference
Andrzej Odrzywołek. All elementary functions from a single operator. ArXiv: 2603.21852v2. 4 April 2026.
Labels: ideas, math, technology
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