OT: Slide rules

[fiamme red]

I just read this obituary of Walter Shawlee, who in recent decades "cornered the world market" in slide rules: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/s...wlee-dead.html.

Mr. Shawlee was not merely a slide-rule sentimentalist in thrall to memories of teenage geekdom. He argued that slide rules had intrinsic appeal for several reasons.

He saw dignity, for example, in their solidity and design. A 1999 Times profile quoted Mr. Shawlee describing slide rules as “the techno-guys’ version of a broadsword.” On his website, The Slide Rule Universe, he contrasted them with digital technology. “In 50 years, the computer you are using to view this webpage will be landfill,” he wrote, “but your trusty slide rule will just be nicely broken in!”

To Mr. Shawlee, the lost durability represented by slide rules belonged to a broader narrative of decline. “When we used slide rules every day back in the 1960s, we were able to send people to the moon,” Mr. Shawlee told The Journal. Speaking to The Times, he observed, “People who grow up with calculators have no number sense.”

I assume that anyone over a certain age (55? 60?) who studied math, physics, or engineering learned how to calculate with a slide rule. By the time I was growing up, electronic calculators were ubiquitous and I used a Texas Instruments scientific calculator in high school and college.

I admit that after reading this article, I'm thinking of buying a slide rule and learning how to use it.

[crankles]

Originally Posted by fiamme red

I just read this obituary of Walter Shawlee, who in recent decades "cornered the world market" in slide rules: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/s...wlee-dead.html.

I assume that anyone over a certain age (55? 60?) who studied math, physics, or engineering learned how to calculate with a slide rule. By the time I was growing up, electronic calculators were ubiquitous and I used a Texas Instruments scientific calculator in high school and college.

I admit that after reading this article, I'm thinking of buying a slide rule and learning how to use it.

I too had an early HP in high School....later 70s, but my dad taught me how to use his... I subsequently explained logarithms to my kids with it. They don't know how to use it, but it's a great teaching tool.

[buddybikes]

My sister had a real nice slide rule in late 60s for college work, I thought it was cool so I learned on plastic one and used it through trig in high school.

On a separate note, in 1979 I did a college work/study program at a binder maker. They asked me to research making a specialized binder for a calculator. During my research, stopped a little store in Springfield MA that had this Apple logo on it. I advised in my report that thing in the store will be important and they should research stuff in support of it. If I only put my (few) money were my heart was.

[rounder]

I still have my Dietzgen slide rule from college. I never learned how to use most of the scales, but we did not have calculators or smart phones back then. Have not used a slide rule since.

[tomato coupe]

The venerable E6-B slide rule is still taught and used in flight schools.

[bigbill]

When I went to Naval Nuclear Power School in 1986, the school had only approved calculators a few years earlier. I used an HP 42 RPN, but I could do basic stuff on a slide rule at the time. It took me a while to unlearn RPN and use a standard TI calculator. Back in my carrier driving days I was pretty good with a nautical slide rule. Wind envelopes changed by aircraft and weapons load. The EA-6B Prowlers were the most sensitive to cross winds.

[Hindmost]

For a typical science problem you had to calculate twice. Once to get the correct digits; and second to place the decimal point.

[Peter B]

I learned to use a slide rule but was right on the cusp just as 4 function calculators were hitting the scene. Nowadays I rely on the (emulated) RPN HP-41cx app on my iPhone for calculations.

[redir]

Hey ChatGPT, "what's a slide rule?"

[PacNW2Ford]

I learned how to use a slide rule in junior high, in my world early affordable calculators arrived around 1977. I started engineering school with an early tan HP29 (?), then HP11C, HP41C, HP42S and finally HP33S. Probably for the last two decades of my engineering career, used them like a 4-function calculator. I inherited my grandfather's K&E slide rule from the 1940's. Amazing how things have progressed!

[oliver1850]

[QUOTE I assume that anyone over a certain age (55? 60?) who studied math, physics, or engineering learned how to calculate with a slide rule. By the time I was growing up, electronic calculators were ubiquitous and I used a Texas Instruments scientific calculator in high school and college.

I admit that after reading this article, I'm thinking of buying a slide rule and learning how to use it.[/QUOTE]

I think you are about a decade off on when the transition to calculators occurred. I was born in the 1950s and was using a TI calculator in high school. I have never used or even looked at a slide rule. I do prefer vernier calipers to dial or digital - at least while I can still read them.

[dmitrik4]

I’m 46 and have a Mechanical Engineering degree and slide rules seem like black magic 😆

[oliver1850]

I'm interested to hear what folks remember about calculators being allowed on tests. I think they may not have been allowed on tests when I was in high school, because everyone might not have had one. I can remember my physics and chemistry finals in college because they were so stressful, but I can't remember if calculators were allowed. Guessing they were, would have been hard to police in a room with 1000 kids.

[Peter P.]

We don't even need calculators. We just ask Siri. Such a shame.

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by oliver1850

[QUOTE I assume that anyone over a certain age (55? 60?) who studied math, physics, or engineering learned how to calculate with a slide rule. By the time I was growing up, electronic calculators were ubiquitous and I used a Texas Instruments scientific calculator in high school and college.

I admit that after reading this article, I'm thinking of buying a slide rule and learning how to use it.

I think you are about a decade off on when the transition to calculators occurred. I was born in the 1950s and was using a TI calculator in high school. I have never used or even looked at a slide rule. I do prefer vernier calipers to dial or digital - at least while I can still read them.[/QUOTE]

Born in '53, mechanical engineer. Learned on a slide rule. Principal benefit is being able to keep track of decimal point location when doing quick ballpark estimates in work sessions, definitely better than younger co-workers Calculators appeared at MIT in '73-74. I was a TA in a course in Fall of ‘74, one wealthy kid had an HP-35, the only undergrad with a calculator. I wouldn't give him partial credit on a problem set in which he had an answer of 8,000,000 psi in a steel cable. The correct answer was 80,000 psi, he wanted partial credit because he only got the decimal point in the wrong place.