I am not a big fan of new technology. I’m not at all interested in the latest gadget. But when I saw a headline last week announcing an “iShoe,” I thought, “Hey, cool! Now, that, I could use! As it turns out, though, it wasn’t what I thought it was.
On the low-tech side, I’ve picked up a new hobby: the slide rule. Sound dull? Well it’s not. And as you laugh at me, consider this: when civilization collapses and all the calculators have worn out, I’ll still be able to tell you, in just a few seconds, that the square root of 7 is 2.646.
I’m not actually old enough to have been taught to use a slide rule and, as I’ve asked around, it seems there is not a single person I know who knows how to use one. I went on eBay to find the particular model that corresponds with an instruction book I had picked up previously, and I’m teaching myself.
So I’m curious; have any of my readers ever used a slide rule, or known anyone who did?
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5 Comments:
#1 || 10·03·06··09:19 || Kim in ON
Never used a slide rule myself, but one of the students who graduated from our youth program, and is now taking engineering at school, enjoys using one.
#2 || 10·03·06··09:55 || rebecca
I used one both in high school and in college. By the time I went to college the second time, the switch had been made to calculators. The problem with slide rules is that you still have to use a table for the logarithms (which, by the way, I had to look up in order to spell). Not to mention that you still have to work out all the calculations on paper.
#3 || 10·03·06··10:28 || David
I’m learning that if I want to be really proficient with it, there’s an awful lot I’ll have to remember. It’s pretty handy for some things, though, like figuring proportions and, as I mentioned, square roots.
#4 || 10·03·06··17:46 || Lori
My husband won the Picket International Slide Rule Award in his senior year in high school (1971) and says he still knows how to use one. He admits his is the last generation prior to multi-function calculators being readily available. I do remember people at school with sliderules, and I graduated in '77.
#5 || 10·03·06··22:38 || Tanner
I graduated from high school in the 1990s so I definitely wasn't taught it in school. But my grandfather taught electrical engineering and he insisted that we know how to do all the work with pencil and paper or with a slide rule.
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