All, the memories this invoked.
Remember those days of youth, those of us in our forties? Remember algebra and calculus prior to the pocket calculator? Remember slide rules?
Scientific American has a great article by Cliff Stoll (he of "Silicon Snake Oil" and "The Cuckoo's Egg" fame) about them, and you can download a PDF version of the cut-n-fold paper version here.
Trust, nothing but nothing says geek like a slide rule. Now, you too can recreate those wonderful days of yore, and even reenact that great scene from "Apollo 13" where mission control had to calculate another delta V for the crippled spacecraft (though slide rules really wouldn't have been used for that...). Stick it in your white shirt pocket replete with protector.
Okay, it'll look a little too geeky. Still, for those of us who had to suffer these things, thought this would be nice.
Geeking,
Rob
Who needs a dinky paper one when you have a real one?
That lives in my desk, its been ages since I used it.
*edit* I forgot, it has a nice leather case too
John
not only do I have one that I use once every other blue moon, but it has the leather case
PLUS (courtesy of a professor in college) I have a full copy of a manual on the usage of said rule in the event that I forget the correct way to determine pi or correctly formulate my ln's.
Still got 'em. Vintage 1970's when I was required to use one for high school physics despite the availability of the scientific calculator. Currently sitting on my desk where my eight year-old nephew tried to figure out what it was a few weeks ago. Together we learned (re-learned!) how to do multiplication and division.
And, tucked away in a box somewhere is a Texas Instruments TI-30 calculator (ca. 1977!) which replace my slide rule for college. I removed the battery while packing for a move long ago, and I really haven't seen the thing in nearly 20 years, but I know it's there.
tony b.
...the slide rule was for doing "math un-plugged."
tony b.