This page contains links to Excel spreadsheets that may be useful to learn physics or to write physics problems. If you use these, please send me an email (a link appears in the page credits) and let me know what you think. I'd like to improve these and could use your feedback.

Three caveats: First, these were written on the Windows platform, and the Visual Basic controls do not always work properly on Macs. Second, some of these spreadsheets use macros so you need to enable macros for full functionality. These have been virus-checked. Third, though I have tried my best to eliminate errors, these spreadsheets are provided "as-is", meaning if you build a bridge based on these spreadsheet calculations and it falls down, I'm deeply sorry, but that's the full extent of it. :)

Coulomb's Law and electric fields - you enter up to 4 charges and their xyz positions, and the spreadsheet calculates the force on a fifth test charge at a specified field point P, and the electric field there, and various other quantities.

Polynomial - you enter the coefficients of 2 polynomials and the spreadsheet multiplies them, and performs other operations.

Quadratic Equation Solver - you enter the coefficients of a quadratic polynomial, and the spreadsheet solves them and presents the answer in several different ways.

Relativity - you enter coordinates and velocities, and the spreadsheet does Lorentz coordinate transformations and velocity transformations for you in up to 2 reference frames. Also solves relativistic Doppler shift problems.

Simultaneous equations - solves simultaneous linear equations in 2 and 3 variables using Cramer's Rule.

Thin lenses and mirrors - solves problems where some of the following quantities are given: object distance, image distance, focal length, lens position, image location.

Vector addition - you enter the magnitudes and angles of up to 5 vectors, and the spreadsheet graphically adds them, tip to tail, and calculates the x and y components of each vector and of their sum. It also displays the answer in polar form. Hit "re-draw arrowheads" to update the display. Excel's scatter plot does not have an "arrowhead" option when connecting points.