#sliderule — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #sliderule, aggregated by home.social.
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Do the calculation
I have accumulated quite a collection of calculators over the years, for school, for work, for fun. So long as the modern grid keeps going, they all work. But, maybe I should review the slide rule instructions, just in case. No batteries, no power, no internet. Just works.
Here's a thought: will all calculation be done by AI in the future and, how should that figure in to math education? Teach analog technique.
#calculator #sliderule #analog #oldtech #education #math -
Every cook needs a kitchen slide rule:
https://entropicthoughts.com/kitchen-slide-rule -
me, using a slide rule instead of any of several other calculators, because it's fun
today im using the 6" pocket model, which isnt suuper precise but it's Good Enough for working examples from this book
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Because I'm super geeky like that, I've started using a circular #SlideRule when I score #baseball games -- I set the ballpark capacity on the D scale, the attendance on the C scale, and look under the 1 on the D to read the percentage of capacity on C. Accurate enough for my scoresheets.
Just went back and filled that percentage to all the college and #WorldBaseballClassic games I've scored this year.
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Because I'm super geeky like that, I've started using a circular #SlideRule when I score #baseball games -- I set the ballpark capacity on the D scale, the attendance on the C scale, and look under the 1 on the D to read the percentage of capacity on C. Accurate enough for my scoresheets.
Just went back and filled that percentage to all the college and #WorldBaseballClassic games I've scored this year.
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Sliderule Simulator Teaches You How To Do Calculations The Old Fashioned Way
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Sliderule Simulator Teaches You How To Do Calculations The Old Fashioned Way
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Sliderule Simulator Teaches You How To Do Calculations The Old Fashioned Way
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Sliderule Simulator Teaches You How To Do Calculations The Old Fashioned Way
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Sliderule Simulator Teaches You How To Do Calculations The Old Fashioned Way
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Carl F #Krafft posited: #Venturi forces account for 1806× #mass-difference in #proton & #electron but #polarity looks minor compared to #equatorial #flux. The point is, I'm working #conceptually but Krafft used a #sliderule. WHERE'S YOUR #COMPUTER‽ #electrogravitics Full #PDF t.me/gonzojourney...
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Carl F #Krafft posited: #Venturi forces account for 1806× #mass-difference in #proton & #electron but #polarity looks minor compared to #equatorial #flux. The point is, I'm working #conceptually but Krafft used a #sliderule. WHERE'S YOUR #COMPUTER‽ #electrogravitics Full #PDF t.me/gonzojourney...
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Carl F #Krafft posited: #Venturi forces account for 1806× #mass-difference in #proton & #electron but #polarity looks minor compared to #equatorial #flux. The point is, I'm working #conceptually but Krafft used a #sliderule. WHERE'S YOUR #COMPUTER‽ #electrogravitics Full #PDF t.me/gonzojourney...
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Carl F #Krafft posited: #Venturi forces account for 1806× #mass-difference in #proton & #electron but #polarity looks minor compared to #equatorial #flux. The point is, I'm working #conceptually but Krafft used a #sliderule. WHERE'S YOUR #COMPUTER‽ #electrogravitics Full #PDF t.me/gonzojourney...
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🎉 Because who doesn't want to feel like a 1950s scientist while cooking lasagna? 🤓 Apparently, the pinnacle of culinary innovation is ditching your calculator for a kitchen slide rule! 🔢 Because, you know, math is more fun when it's unnecessarily complicated. 👩🔬 Bon appétit, nerds! 🍽️
https://entropicthoughts.com/kitchen-slide-rule #1950sCooking #KitchenInnovation #CulinaryMath #SlideRule #NerdyCuisine #HackerNews #ngated -
🎉 Because who doesn't want to feel like a 1950s scientist while cooking lasagna? 🤓 Apparently, the pinnacle of culinary innovation is ditching your calculator for a kitchen slide rule! 🔢 Because, you know, math is more fun when it's unnecessarily complicated. 👩🔬 Bon appétit, nerds! 🍽️
https://entropicthoughts.com/kitchen-slide-rule #1950sCooking #KitchenInnovation #CulinaryMath #SlideRule #NerdyCuisine #HackerNews #ngated -
🎉 Because who doesn't want to feel like a 1950s scientist while cooking lasagna? 🤓 Apparently, the pinnacle of culinary innovation is ditching your calculator for a kitchen slide rule! 🔢 Because, you know, math is more fun when it's unnecessarily complicated. 👩🔬 Bon appétit, nerds! 🍽️
https://entropicthoughts.com/kitchen-slide-rule #1950sCooking #KitchenInnovation #CulinaryMath #SlideRule #NerdyCuisine #HackerNews #ngated -
🎉 Because who doesn't want to feel like a 1950s scientist while cooking lasagna? 🤓 Apparently, the pinnacle of culinary innovation is ditching your calculator for a kitchen slide rule! 🔢 Because, you know, math is more fun when it's unnecessarily complicated. 👩🔬 Bon appétit, nerds! 🍽️
https://entropicthoughts.com/kitchen-slide-rule #1950sCooking #KitchenInnovation #CulinaryMath #SlideRule #NerdyCuisine #HackerNews #ngated -
Retrotechtacular: Learning the Slide Rule the New Old Fashioned Way https://hackaday.com/2025/12/02/retrotechtacular-learning-the-slide-rule-the-new-old-fashioned-way/ #Retrotechtacular #instructional #trainingfilm #ToolHacks #sliderule
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Laser-Engraving Hairlines: When a Line Isn’t a Line - When is a line not a line? When it’s a series of tiny dots, of course!
The line is... - https://hackaday.com/2022/05/29/laser-engraving-hairlines-when-a-line-isnt-a-line/ #retrocomputing #laserengrave #laserhacks #sliderule #tektronix #hairline -
Laser-Engraving Hairlines: When a Line Isn’t a Line - When is a line not a line? When it’s a series of tiny dots, of course!
The line is... - https://hackaday.com/2022/05/29/laser-engraving-hairlines-when-a-line-isnt-a-line/ #retrocomputing #laserengrave #laserhacks #sliderule #tektronix #hairline -
Today's oddity: showed an actual degreed and employed #engineer how to use a cheap #Vernier #caliper to get accurate measurements down to 0.1mm.
Caveats: engineer is much younger than me, this was an old-school caliper without a dial or digital readout, their primarily field is fluid dynamics (so not a lot of calipers). And they understood the idea quickly.
But now I'm wondering this person would panic at the sight of a #slideRule. Tempting to throw one in the bag "just in case."
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In this session, Alex Arthur (@JamesA) shared an odd fountain they found whilst travelling that is both mathsy and artsy. @Tony_Mann showed us a magic square, which is interesting whichever way you look at it: https://www.markfarrar.co.uk/chris-wardles-reflections-magic-square.htm. We revisited (a kind of) slide rule with @gavan Fantom, who told us about Mechanical Flight Computers. We then heard from @pozorvlak about lathes, and cool shapes that can be produced using them (including a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotrochoid) Vanessa Madu talked about modelling an ocean and the commendable properties of rubber ducks for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Floatees_spill. Following this, Joey Marianer spoke on the Prisoner's Dilemma and intuition (see https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HFyWNBnDNEDsDNLrZ/the-true-prisoner-s-dilemma for more info). @andrewt then spoke about a graphics trick used in old videogames to rotate sprites - just do three shears! #mathsjam #maths #fountain #strasbourg #magicsquares #sliderule #flightcomputer #modelling #rubberducks #ocean #prisonersdilemma #graphics #videogames #shears #imagerotation
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So what does a mathsphobe do with their Saturday morning?
She cleans and lubricates her slide rules, obviously!
#contradictory #mathsphobe #ClassicEngineering #SlideRule #Pickett #VintageTech
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It's another post about #rulers -- well, of sorts.
I own a slide rule -- likely given to me by my dad. These would have been used a lot during schools and engineering bods alike. Until such time that the pocket calculator came along.
I ought to learn how to use it.
I own a copy of "The Slide Rule", by Burns Snodgrass, which is either a name, or an instruction, I'm not sure which...
Whilst I was rooting around, I came across these two gems:
The United Kingdom Slide Rule Circle: https://www.uksrc.org.uk
The International Sliderule Museum: https://www.sliderulemuseum.com
I really hope they're still being used somewhere, by some people.
Considering there's so many blooming different ones (some circular, for instance), it would be a shame these things were consigned to history.
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Today's bike ride needed a little calculation. 60 minutes at 10.9 mph, plus 5 more minutes when my bike computer app was off, equals 11.8 miles. #SlideRule #FlightComputer
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Excited to learn how to use this retro calculator!
Saw this on eBay and couldn't resist a little bid. Anyway I won, and this turned up today.
Always did like logarithms...
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Picked up an ASA E6-B flight computer circular #SlideRule at a yard sale. It's the same kind Spock uses on TOS, though his is aluminum; this one is paper. I have an aluminum one from another company, which I occasionally use to calculate my #ebike daily ride mileage when my GPS app fails. This one is more legible, and lighter weight.
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In our high school math textbook, there were formulae for converting sums of trigonometric functions to products. We were tested of their knowledge. I hated them because there was no imaginable practical use for them.
One time, my late grandmother who was a chemical engineer, found an artifact of her young days in a cabinet — a slide rule.
When I came to visit her, she showed me that thing and offered to show me how it was used. "Look, it's trivial to multiply, but to add... let me show you, there's a trick for that".
Then the true purpose of the useless formulae clicked. They were there to help people make their lives simpler in the slide rule era. And then, no one thought to remove them from the textbook and it was reprinted with those out-of-context artifacts still in. -
@tomwsmf I laid out my #sliderule for the #boardgame Acquire with a #LibreOffice spreadsheet.
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Unwinding an Unusual Slide Rule - If the Otis King slide rule in [Chris Staecker’s] latest video looks a bit familia... - https://hackaday.com/2025/05/12/unwinding-an-unusual-slide-rule/ #retrocomputing #sliderule #otisking
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Unwinding an Unusual Slide Rule https://hackaday.com/2025/05/12/unwinding-an-unusual-slide-rule/ #Retrocomputing #sliderule #otisking
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Found in a thrift store. Hard to believe that people used to use this actual thing to do actual calculations to fly actual planes. #SlideRule #AnalogComputer #aviation
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Circuit VR: The Wheatstone Bridge Analog Computer - We are always impressed with something so simple can actually be so complex. For e... - https://hackaday.com/2022/03/31/circuit-vr-the-wheatstone-bridge-analog-computer/ #wheatstonebridge #analogcomputer #voltagedivider #engineering #sliderule #history #falstad
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When I was studying, a slide rule was all I was allowed to use for calculations, also on exams.
Simple #electronic #calculators existed already, but school boards didn't know what to make of these yet. So they were banned.
Watches with slide rules exist too and I have one of these, a #Breitling look-a-like.
On a side note: I found out that trying to explain how a slide rule works to modern day students generally fries their brains.
Just don't.
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Joost Bürgi and Logarithms - Logarithms are a common idea today, even though we don’t use them as often as we u... - https://hackaday.com/2024/02/27/joost-burgi-and-logarithms/ #retrocomputing #logarithms #sliderule
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Rubber Band “Slide Rule” Doesn’t Slide, but Rotates - Around here we mostly enjoy slide rules. We even have our own collections includin... - https://hackaday.com/2022/04/04/rubber-band-slide-rule-doesnt-slide-but-rotates/ #logarithms #mischacks #sliderule #math
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The #SlideRule, like the #LogBook, is probably as useless as the #PocketCalculator, today. But I am obsessed with those relics, even in the face of modern 64-bit and 128-bit CPUs.
I hope, in a couple of decades when I'm six-feet-under, people still appreciate those CPUs as we do the slide rule.
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I had to use the #SlideRule early in my #engineering education, many decades ago. Since then, I've collected many slide rules from round the globe. Of those, my absolute favourite is the #Hemmi 130W Advanced Darmstadt—one of the most basic models.
I admit that this is rather a brazen statement in the face of #FaberCastell 2/83 N Novo Duplex, #Aristo 0969 StudioLog, #Nestler 0292 Multimath-Duplex, #K&E 4081-3 Log Log Duplex Decitrig, and many other duplex, advanced, engineering slide rules.
https://amenzwa.github.io/stem/ComputingHistory/HowSlideRulesWork/
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Did a cool maths workshop with @Ayliean earlier at #emfcamp and spotted this #Aristo beauty on the wall. Immediately thought of @VintageProject :) #Sliderule
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My old computer treasures for #retrofriday...
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@fribble I learned to use one in the mid-1970s in junior high school (ie, grades 7&8). Still have my father's K&E slide rule. Plan on re-learning how to use it.
Edit: Mine is a K&E Model 4081-3, serial 720xxx, circa 1939. Fits when my dad was at the Missouri School of Mines studying metallurgical engineering.
I also have my circa 1981 or 82 HP15C. Still use HP15C emulators on my computers and iPhone. RPN rules!
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I collect slide rules, and my mother-in-law just gave me a nice addition to the collection -- which might be morphing into traditional mechanical calculating devices...it's a soroban, which seems to be a form of portable abacus. Very cool.