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Anyone ever use a slide rule ?

Hell yes and I had the K & E metal rule with engraved white plastic faces that came in a leather case
Used it in college for all my physics and chem classes
Before the calc age when the experiment took 30" and the calculations on the slide rule took 4 hours...Long before Excel

In statistics we had these funky mechanical adding machines that were activated with a long crank

In fact when the first Tex Inst calculator came ou,t I decided to buy one for my dad on father's day on sale from 100 down to 85 bucks
,and all it could doo was add subtract multiply and divide.
 
I used one in college (Chemical engineering). I still have mine, a Post, and a circular slide rule, and I think I also have a smaller Post version. I can still multiply and divide, but can no longer do Base 10 and natural logarithms. Took a job after college with an oil company that had those Wang calculators, if you’ve ever seen one of those. I thought that was pretty cool back then, but it was pretty basic compared to what came later. Finally went to an HP12C. Still have it. Back in the late 90’s I was in an M&A team in NYC and when we and the other team sat down to talk, almost everybody had that HP12C calculator. That’s what the cool kids had.
 
Back in the day, you could always spot the Engineering students, they were wearing slide rules in holsters on their side like Western gunslingers.
 
Got my Jap Sans and Streiffe the summer after the 6th grade. I spent the next 8 or 10 years turning the real number line every whichaway. Numbers were my language from the very start.
 
When I was in the Navy going to nuclear power school in Vallejo CA we were issued plastic Post slide rules. We were prohibited from using calculators. Back then they were really expensive. As I remember, after completing 2 years of school I could use every scale on that rule.
 
I was set to graduate from high school in 1974 and figured I need a calculator for college. I wrote a letter to Texas Instruments requesting a calculator and enclosed a $300 check. That was a lot of money in `74. By the time it was delivered 4 months later the price had dropped to $100 and they sent me a $200 refund. I went off to college to study Civil Engineering at Texas A&M and was in the last class that was required to take a class on how to use the slide rule. I checked all my answers with the TI. I now have a slide rule in my office but have yet to remaster the thing.
 
I have to admit that when I was a process engineer in an oil refinery in the 70’s, I really did use a pocket protector and had a circular slide rule in it.

But, in college only the super geeks hung their slide rule cases on their belts. I never did that. Not even once.
 
I got this in a yard sale thinking "cool".
Humm, it'll take longer to learn how than it's worth.

The paragraph on "Who should use the slide rule" is interesting.
View attachment 1344107View attachment 1344106
Copyright 1932
Still have one of those, a log log duplex decitrig, leather holster and the green box. A Christmas present from my egghead - MIT grad - cousin back in the 50's. He wore one on his belt all the time, and had pocket protecters. I sort of could use it and was about as good with that thing as I am with a computer, which is to say.....not very good.
 
Social Science major here. Studied the intricacies of abnormal psychology, deviant behavior, juvenile delinquency, then theology, Biblical doctrine and eschatology. Did my masters and doctorate in a 20 year program of applied theory in the University of Observed Stupidity.

In all that time I only once got scammed into a math class. Crash reconstruction 1 and 2. I passed because I made friends with a guy who spoke numbers and liked beer.

In the end, I had a vague understanding of vector analysis, friction, mass, velocity, vaults and yaw. When I went into the field to diagram the scene of fatal accidents, I deferred to the younger guys who ran the thingamabob that keyed in all the numbers. I held the pole. Ya, I gained the unfortunate nickname "Pole Holder". :oops:

I understood the scene, but never did gain the ability to speak numbers. To me it is about as sensible as Mandarin.

So God bless each of you math types. If I had a slide rule, it would likely be used to stir pancake batter.
 
I bought one when I entered engineering school in 1960 and graduated using it. I went to work in 1965 on the Saturn V moon rocket and that is what we had to work with, no hand held calculators. I still have that same slide rule and could use it if I had to today.
Used sliderule in high school. Got to college after the service, everyone was getting the Texas Instruments TI-30, remember it being expensive lol, on the GI bill and a couple of part time jobs. BUT NO STUDENT LOAN TO PAY BACK!
 
You must remember that at the best, a slide rule was only accurate to 3 significant numbers.
Engineers were still able to build Hoover Dam, send men to the moon, and design and build a nuclear bomb and nuclear reactor.

Even today, are there many things that require more precision?

I used one in the Navy since I was an Electronics Technician (When they still used Fleming tubes and discrete resistors, capacitors, etc) and studying to be a submarine reactor operator.
 
I college in the late 60s we had to use a slide rule as calculators were not allowed during exams. Inertia is wonderful isn’t it?
 
My dad gave me his K&E that he used when completing his Chemical Engineering degree at Rensalaer (sp?) in the early 40's before joining the Navy. I used it throughout college (graduated '74, biochemistry). hand held calculators were becoming available but were outrageously expensive. By comparison, my tuition per quarter at University of CA, San Diego (not per unit...) was just over $100, while calculators were in the $300 range.
 

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