Excel 5 has curve fitting (using "trendline") which is very useful.
--
I had my electronics students to conduct an investigation of
the gain-bandwidth relationship for amplifiers, and they were required
to develop a mathematical model from their data. I recommended using
Mathcad with its "Solve Block" technique to do the modeling. I told
them they could use a spreadsheet, but they'd probably have to do the
parameter adjusting by hand. One of the students found a "Solver" in
Excel that works like the Solve Block in Mathcad.
I continue to be impressed with how useful spreadsheets are for doing
physics. I have done Fourier analysis with Quattro Pro 5 for Windows,
and I recently started teaching my intro students to use the "Trendline"
feature in Excel. Now I'm also going to teach them about the "Solver".
(By the way--I started using spreadsheets for grading many years ago,
beginning with my Commodore 64. I liked the tips on how to go beyond
just dropping the lowest grade, which is all I've done so far.)