Happy Birthday to Logarithms

[JohnH]

Good article.

How many on this forum are skilled with a slide rule?

(I have one in my desk, although I don't stay in practice.)

 

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/logarithms-celebrate-their-400th-birthday

 

I credit the slide rule with having enabled me to form a mental picture of how log tables actually work. 

[kcjenkins]

Good article.  When I got ready to leave for college, in 1961, my father gave me a beautiful slide rule as my special gift.  The leather case had a belt-loop so I could keep it at my side all the time. and I loved it.   I could  do simple calculations faster than an electronic calculator or today's calculator apps.  And, of course, those did not exist then.  

[Catherine]

I still have the little plastic slide rule I bought in junior high school (now known as "middle school") for fifty cents.  It lives in my car, and I use it to calculate my mileage when I feel like being more exact than I can be, quickly, in my head just using percentages.  My husband has a nice collection of wooden ones, including a *circular* slide rule.  We all know how to use them - although I think both girls are pretty rusty at this point.  Most of their peers don't even know what one is, though.  

[Lion EA]

You could tell the engineering majors with their six-inch slide rules from the science majors with their 12-inch slide rules.

[Jack from Ohio]

You could tell the engineering majors with their six-inch slide rules from the science majors with their 12-inch slide rules.

So, even back then, size mattered?

[jklcpa]

Good one, Jack!  lol

 

I still have my slide rule too, and an abacus.

[Lion EA]

I have my slide rules and my CRC book of tables.

[MAMalody]

I have both a 12 inch and 6 inch, inherited from my Dad who was a chem major in college.  About the only thing I can remember to do is to multiply and divide.  May have to brush up to stay up, it looks like.

[ILLMAS]

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6866390272/h043ADC0F/

[Don in Upstate NY]

I sold my slide rules on e-bay, and also my supply of Smith-chart graph paper.

 

Don  EA, BSEE, MSEE, MBA, NCI

[Catherine]

I sold my slide rules on e-bay, and also my supply of Smith-chart graph paper.

 

Don  EA, BSEE, MSEE, MBA, NCI

 

Ooohh! Smith charts -- my husband wants a bolo tie clip done as a Smith chart.  Being a NM native, he figures he rates being able to wear a bolo even here in the east.