The Lure of Slide Rules

Over at “Davos Newbies”:https://www.davosnewbies.com/ Lance Knobel is writing about “the lure of the slide rule”:https://www.davosnewbies.com/2004/07/08#theLureOfTheSlideRule:

bq. “Those of us who love slide rules are by definition not Luddites. It’s the tactile nature of the technology that excites, rather than a revulsion against the technologies that replaced it. There were gains provided by electronic calculators. Our work, lives and society are being dramatically transformed – and I believe generally improved – through near-ubiquitous computing. But there are losses from the slide rule age that are more than nostalgia. It’s better to be a tool user than a tool manager.”

I too was one of the last generation at school not only to learn about this device but to use it on a daily basis. Lance touches (!) on the tactile nature of the tool yet this goes beyond pure pleasure – I don’t think it is too far-fetched to say that using a slide rule gives you a real _feel_ for numbers… After all how else can you easily demonstrate that to multiply two numbers you can add the logarithms? (yes, we used log tables too!).

Avatar
Proactive application of technology to business

My interests include technology, personal knowledge management, social change

Next
Previous