[TheForge] OT slide rules

[dann at wctatel.net]

Using a slide rule requires that the mind be able to do a quick double
check to see if the answer is -ball park- correct.

Too many people are clueless if the calculator spits out a number that is
hundreds or thousands of units off.

Three significant units of a correct answer win hands down over 9
significant digits that are flat out wrong.

Dann


> Gee, I used to have both the traditional straight
> slide rule and a circular one, both good for doing the
> math that put a "man on the moon", I think.
>
> Back in that era, we had Frieden mechanical
> calculators that were good out to many decimal places.
> A few years before me, in the Battleships of WW II,
> they had mechanical calculators/computers way up in
> the crows nest that they could do ballastic ranging
> with those machines. I saw that on the History
> Channel.
>
> It's really funny, why use the slide rule or the
> abacus, pencil and paper works really well also.
>
> In the time of the early space program, their were
> electronic computers, Burrows and IBM. Banks had been
> using them for a while.
>
> Jerry
>
>
> --- Andrew Vida <osan at netlabs.net> wrote:
>
>> I suppose it depends on the task at hand.  We did,
>> after all, put men on
>> the moon by engineering craft with the slide rule.
>> This is not to take
>> anything away from the abacus, a righteous
>> calculating machine in its
>> own right.
>>
>> schade at acegroup.cc wrote:
>> >
>> > this just came up on another list I read. slide
>> rules and gozinta.........
>> >
>> > Bob
>> > ___________
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > My two cents on slide rules: They are great for
>> APPROXIMATE answers to
>> > a few decimal places. BUT, for real accuracy,
>> especially in commercial
>> > and trade applications you really need an abacus.
>> They have many, many
>> > more significant digits of accuracy than a slide
>> rule. And when
>> > trading pounds of corn for bags of nails you don't
>> really need square
>> > roots and logarithms just the basic four: plus,
>> minus, times and gozinta.
>> >
>> > --gary where the Willamette meets the McKenzie in
>> Orygun, US of A.
>>
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