Slide Rules
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I just get a feeling that only people of 40 years plus will have/have used them!
------------------------------------ "May I introduce Blon Fel-Fotch Pasermeer-Day Slitheen from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious, known by her friends as Margaret" The Doctor
Not so much; my father never showed me how to use his, and I never saw him using it either. When we did logarithms on high school we used calculators.
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OK, from the previous post, How many here actually OWN a slide rule, and can you use them? (I have one, and yes, I can use it). Actually I am reminded of an old physics teacher who pointed out that the calculations regarding a particular experiment were fairly simple, and "Didn't require a bucket of water in which to cool the slide rules!"
------------------------------------ "May I introduce Blon Fel-Fotch Pasermeer-Day Slitheen from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious, known by her friends as Margaret" The Doctor
I had one, in high school, for a few months before they finally allowed scientific calculators. It wasn't a masterpiece, I didn't cherish it, and it is lost in the annals of my history some twenty-five years or more ago.
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Yeah, that's what they teach, but when using the logarithmic scales properly, you really can do addition with it. Great invention, too bad non-sliding computers are taking over. :)
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
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The logarithmic scales are what permit a slide rule to do multiplication. Setting the index of the slide over one multiplicand, one will then find the product beneath the other multiplicand. For this to result in addition, the scales would have to be linear, not logarithmic, and the result would be the sum of the number under the index and the other addend.
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OK, from the previous post, How many here actually OWN a slide rule, and can you use them? (I have one, and yes, I can use it). Actually I am reminded of an old physics teacher who pointed out that the calculations regarding a particular experiment were fairly simple, and "Didn't require a bucket of water in which to cool the slide rules!"
------------------------------------ "May I introduce Blon Fel-Fotch Pasermeer-Day Slitheen from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious, known by her friends as Margaret" The Doctor
Yes and yes! (though only for reasonably basic stuff).
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The logarithmic scales are what permit a slide rule to do multiplication. Setting the index of the slide over one multiplicand, one will then find the product beneath the other multiplicand. For this to result in addition, the scales would have to be linear, not logarithmic, and the result would be the sum of the number under the index and the other addend.
Yes, multiplying and dividing numbers on a slide ruler is based on
log(x*y) = log(x) + log(y)which shows multiplication on one scale is equivalent to addition on another scale. On a simple ruler, with a few scales all layed-out logarithmically, the only thing you can do is slide the parts (that is adding lengths), then read the product/quotient. More elaborate rulers have extra scales, supporting extra functions; when a linear or a quadratic scale is present, you can do addition/subtraction! Here are an introduction[^] and a nice collection[^]. :)Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
- before you ask a question here, search CodeProject, then Google - the quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get - use the code block button (PRE tags) to preserve formatting when showing multi-line code snippets
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What a slide rule? Some sort of new design pattern? ;) Marc
Available for consulting and full time employment. Contact me. Interacx
It's what the kids shout at wet and wild. "This slide rules."
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
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I just get a feeling that only people of 40 years plus will have/have used them!
------------------------------------ "May I introduce Blon Fel-Fotch Pasermeer-Day Slitheen from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious, known by her friends as Margaret" The Doctor
okay - I am going to fish mine out and teach my kids (9 & 10 years old).
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it. - pTerry
BizSquawk -
OK, from the previous post, How many here actually OWN a slide rule, and can you use them? (I have one, and yes, I can use it). Actually I am reminded of an old physics teacher who pointed out that the calculations regarding a particular experiment were fairly simple, and "Didn't require a bucket of water in which to cool the slide rules!"
------------------------------------ "May I introduce Blon Fel-Fotch Pasermeer-Day Slitheen from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious, known by her friends as Margaret" The Doctor
I had one, back in college, and used it until they invented the calculator. It was my Dad's, made in Germany of rosewood... beautiful thing. I have no idea where it is now. It even had a leather case with a belt loop for carrying - you could always spot the engineering students by the scabbards on their belts and the pocket liners in their shirts. The calculator had a belt loop, too, and though it was shorter, it was a bit heavier. The venerable HP-67[^] was a work of art, and it saved my ass in school. I spent an entire weekend, drinking and gobbling pizza with my friend Bob Lanza, programming a routine that would solve a 20th order differential equation that would fit on one magnetic scan card. We had a Control Systems final exam on Monday, and the teacher was fond of root locus problems of high order. We passed, and that was a feat not possible with a slide rule. :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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I just get a feeling that only people of 40 years plus will have/have used them!
------------------------------------ "May I introduce Blon Fel-Fotch Pasermeer-Day Slitheen from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious, known by her friends as Margaret" The Doctor
The HP-35 arrived in 1972...and the slide rules' rule slowly declined
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am
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OK, from the previous post, How many here actually OWN a slide rule, and can you use them? (I have one, and yes, I can use it). Actually I am reminded of an old physics teacher who pointed out that the calculations regarding a particular experiment were fairly simple, and "Didn't require a bucket of water in which to cool the slide rules!"
------------------------------------ "May I introduce Blon Fel-Fotch Pasermeer-Day Slitheen from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious, known by her friends as Margaret" The Doctor
I think I have four, two long sticks (an expensive K&E and a cheap plastic one) a six inch one for taking to class and a specialized circular one for aviation navigation. They were surprisingly accurate IF you could keep track of the decimal point. My homework was always off by a factor of 10, 100, or 1000. Thank goodness for calculators by the time I started working for Boeing and the answers mattered! K&E has all but disappeared because they could not see a freight train coming down the track even when it was pointed out to them. Bomarc was one of the earliest calculators; they went to K&E and asked K&E if they were interested in branding the Bomarc calculator. K&E sniffed that a four function calculator was not as useful as a good slide rule. A while later TI talked to K&E, the TI calc could do sq-roots by then, but that still was not good enough to interest K&E. Anyone want to speculate on what product/industry is facing a similar change that will make them obsolete? A couple obvious ones are: Newspapers Music Distribution Brodcast/Cable TV
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