Slide rules

Jun 02, 2008 Last reply: 6 years ago 126 Replies

I took great delight in throwing them out after they became redundant, but I regret doing that now, for the same reason as I want to show the g daughters that this is how we did it.

This came up in a conversation with my drinking companion, some weeks ago when I was talking about how we used to be educated, but I never followed it up.

Dave

Mine is a double sided rule with all sorts of odd outer scales and I'm not sure I ever knew how to use all of them.

Colin Bignell

Ditto. I've just counted them: 24 scales, and 10 lines on the cursor.

I've just taken a look at eBay and it seems to have no value in the nostalgia market either.

The one I had at school was double-sided, but that wasn't necessary for school work. It was my dad's, and he's a physicist. The one I picked up from ebay is just single sided.

If you search with google, you can find people with pages of just about every slide rule ever produced and what all the scales on them were.

Now that is cool ...

:-)

takes me back to days of slide rules, log tables, "turn the handle" calculator machines

and this thing ...

But I was a decimal taught kid at school. Work that one out ;-)

I just found the British Thornton one I bought in the second week of October 1970! More to the point, it has the instructions...

I have one of these, in working condition...!

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Nearly 40 years after I last used log tables I can still remember that log Pi is 0.4971 as well as log 2, 3,5 & 6. Sad or what?

Bob

I think it's impressive.

I'm not going to check - by the time I get downstairs I'll have forgotten :-)

Mary

Adrian C coughed up some electrons that declared:

I've got one of those - in fact I think I have my grandfather's one too which is far more fancy but the same principle.

You say the nicest things Mary - I have always had a soft spot for you!!

Bob

Yes, it is sad.

Is Ian Allan the publisher?

I can recall pi (to ten places) = 3.141592754. Even sadder?

Sssshhhhhhh! You'll get a bad reputation!

Rubbing beeswax or a candle on the sliding surfaces can also help (and won't leave marks on your fingers, etc.).

I still know log 1, 10 *and* 100. YBS :-)

Yes. You got it wrong! :P

I remembered the 1st 8 digits and just asked Windows Calc to check for me that it's

3.141592 6 535897932384626433832795 (about)

The isolated digit being the last one I remembered, and the first one you have wrong...

Andy

... and to this day I regret not having asked my Uni for one of the 50 mechanical ones that they had sitting unused in one of the labs...

Andy

What about 'e'?

2.71 something innit?

Well that's it then. I am officially ...

OLD. :-(

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