MAKE LOOKS AT SLIDE RULES
Calculate This!
By Robert Luhn
Images courtesy of Robert Luhn
In the Pre-Digital Epoch, people building bridges, launching rockets, or trying to fill an inside straight used manual calculators. It might’ve been a snazzy slide rule, or a paper wheel with dials that (when properly aligned) computed a sales commission, the proper valve fitting, or how big a hole a 20-megaton H-bomb would make.
As one observer put it, manual calculators like the slide rule and its kin “radically increased our capacity to perform complex mathematical computations. They literally enabled us to develop our modern world.” Here are six classic ...
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