Assignment 12

Spreadsheet Exploration

by

Sharon Sewell

EMAT 6680

Fall 2001


 

I have been using a spreadsheet program of one kind or another for many, many years.  They are a very versital tool when working with a lot of data that needs sorting or a repetitive formula.  A perfect example of this is part 7 of this assignment.  Place four numbers in the first row as follows:A B C D.  Each of these needs to be in a separate column.  For each successive row replace the entries by the absolute value of the difference of the entery just above and the entry just to the right in the previous row.  In the foruth position use the absolute value of the difference of the fourth and the first row as follows: |A ?B|  |B ? C|  |C ? D| |D ? A|.  This is not difficult to create on a spreadsheet program.  Fill in the first row with the desired first numbers.  On the second row create the formula needed to do the math for each cell.  The critical things to remember were to not forget the absolute value commands and to make sure that A is subtracted from D and not column E.  Once the second row is set up, it can be copied down the page as far as desired.  The row numbers and column numbers will shift appropriately with the copy function.

Here is an example of the above problem:
 
 
Column A
Column B
Column C
Column D
Column A
Column B
Column C
Column D
55
236
2
1713
10
12
14
16
181
234
1711
1658
2
2
2
6
53
1477
53
1477
0
0
4
4
1424
1424
1424
1424
0
4
0
4
0
0
0
0
4
4
4
4
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Column A
Column B
Column C
Column D
Column A
Column B
Column C
Column D
1
2
3
4
10000
1000
100
10
1
1
1
3
9000
900
90
9990
0
0
2
2
8100
810
9900
990
0
2
0
2
7290
9090
8910
7110
2
2
2
2
1800
180
1800
180
0
0
0
0
1620
1620
1620
1620
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

 
 
Column A
Column B
Column C
Column D
Column A
Column B
Column C
Column D
1500672
3
2756
299
22
36
79
5
1500669
2753
2457
1500373
14
43
74
17
1497916
296
1497916
296
29
31
57
3
1497620
1497620
1497620
1497620
2
26
54
26
0
0
0
0
24
28
28
24
0
0
0
0
4
0
4
0
4
4
4
4
0
0
0
0
Column A
Column B
Column C
Column D
Column A
Column B
Column C
Column D
84
132
17
1
1
10
100
1000
48
115
16
83
9
90
900
999
67
99
67
35
81
810
99
990
32
32
32
32
729
711
891
909
0
0
0
0
18
180
18
180
0
0
0
0
162
162
162
162
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

I created eight different sets of numbers to better show how this problem worked.If you have a desire to manipulate the data more click here to access the worksheet. (Assignment12.xls)Notice that most sets of numbers get to zero in four or five rows.But there is one that takes six and one that takes seven.?Every row does eventually have zeros in all four columns.The row before the end logically has the same number every column also.What is the largest number of rows that you found before hitting zero?After much playing around mine was 13.And that took some playing around with first one column then the others.What made it easy was the fact that, except for the changing the first row, I did not have to do any of the mathematics.
 
Column A
Column B
Column C
Column D
27
38
44
7
11
6
37
20
5
31
17
9
26
14
8
4
12
6
4
22
6
2
18
10
4
16
8
4
12
8
4
0
4
4
4
12
0
0
8
8
0
8
0
8
8
8
8
8
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0


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