Entertainment For Lively Minds
A Slide To The Left..
Posted by Lenny Law on 12 February 2011 - 1:53am.
Sudden thought.
Anyone here remember how to use a slide-rule?
Anyone here had to explain how to use one?
Anyone ever had to explain the significance of logarithms to their kids?
Do logs, both natuaral or otherwise, have any significance in modern teaching of maths and physics?
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Why did the maths teacher eat sawdust?
So he could work it out in logs
Why are maths teachers never constipated?
Because they can always work things out with a pencil.
Electronics
Logarithms are an essential element in electronics theory. The decibel scale is a logarithmic scale and it's as relevant now as it ever was.
Slide rules? I never got on with them at school, I always preferred using a log book because I always knew I would get the answer right without having to do any mental arithmetic.
The last time I used a slide rule was last year at the National Museum of Computing which has a huge one on the wall to have a play with. I was surprised that I half remembered and half worked out how to use it to multiply after not touching one for over 30 years. It's a lot easier getting the markings on a 6ft one lined up than a 6 inch one! I don't think I coould have managed to work out square roots etc though. Try this guide: http://www.hpmuseum.org/srinst.htm
On a tangent (ho ho)
Are kids allowed compasses in schools these days? Sharp pointy things of no obvious use other than throwing at the swotty kid at the front or stabbing the teacher and drawing a neat circle around the wound.
Missing the point!
Why would they need a compass when they have GPS in their smartphone?
I don't often...
...use a slide rule, but if I'm trying to work out if, for instance, 128 at £17.99 is better value than 200 at £28.99, then a slide rule is the tool for the job.
You're in good company
Sam Cooke was a bit unclear about slide rules, too, as I remember.
but to be fair he did revel in
his ignorance of most subjects.
Back in the heyday of football
in the early 80s, Liam Brady was forever making slide rule passes. Boycott, in cricket, meanwhile made textbook forward defensives.
Logarithm's nerdier, brainier cousin Algorithm, of course, underpins the Internet as it the basis of Search and what Google's empire is founded on. More worryingly, our friend Algorithm turned our Nemesis as it a played a part in the financial boom and bust as it drives the automated trading systems of hedge funds and investment banks
Never seen one
And nor have my children
Slide rules are like books, in that
they are analogue devices which need no external power supply, can be carried in your pocket, and will withstand a good deal of mistreatment before they cease to work.
They are an ace invention. They are from a world that isn't shackled to an electricity supply and an electronics industry. Unlike, say, PCs, laptops, netbooks, calculators or eReaders.
Well used, slide rules are accurate enough for most practical purposes.
Slide rules
Havent used one in years, but they are a wonderful piece of kit.