Bringing 1916 to 2016: Slide Rules
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- Before the graphing calculator, the slide rule was the archetypal instrument for engineering students at MIT. Do current students know what a slide rule is or how to use it? They're about to show us.
In 2016, MIT commemorated a century in Cambridge. For more information visit mit2016.mit.edu
I use a slide rule when doing and estimating construction jobs. It freaks most customers out. Older customers are impressed, especially the engineers!
Hi! I am the Head of Public Enlightenment for the International Slide Rule Museum. Would you be interested in joining one of our meetings online? It would be great to have you!
In 1984, I brought my slide rule to my E&M engineering final exam. Only the prof knew what it was.
When i worked as an Engineer in 2007, i used my Sliderule for calculations all the time.. only 2 colleagues knew what it was.. but they both forgot how it actually worked.. , i later designed and made a few myself.. just for fun..
right? I bust out my supernote a5x and the slide rule, most people do not know what wizardry I am doing.
Slide rules and log./trig. tables really drove home the importance of mathematical relationships and the fine art of simplifying expressions. Think before you start punching buttons.
I gave one of my slide rulers to a high school math wiz. He was happy to get it and he figured it out much faster than these MIT students.
MIT is over-rated.
I still have one tucked away. Texas Instruments came out with a calculator about 1972. It cost $ 400 in 1972, which is $ 2,300 today. My dad said to stick with the slide rule.
My dad was a lab tech and I remember that he used to carry a slide rule around in a holster attached to his belt. Then he was given one of those LED-display TI calculators, and that was the last day he carried his slide rule. He simply gave it to me to play with.
The TI 30 was my first, I still love the sliderule tho. No one mentions one part: no batteries!
Your Dad was right. Slide rules work. Electronics do shut down midway thru calcs..
After 20 years working in power plants, the oxygen-in-water sensors (to prevent tubular corrosion) quit working. Guess what? It took a basic CHEMICAL analysis to find out how much O2 was present. So much for electronic marvels.
I'm a substitute teacher for technology. For fun, I was allowed to teach elementary school children how to use a slide rule. They had to make them out of paper. The premise was to show them where technology came from and where it's going. (They even learned the ABACUS!) Children from 2nd grade to 8th were intrigued by the slide rule and wanted to learn more! One student stated that he stopped using his calculator and began to use his paper slide rule to do his homework! MIT, get on board!
These students could make one with a sheet of logarithmic graph paper.
How boring. If you were my sub I would skip the entire class no offence. This has zero value, even transferable-wise..
Hi! I am the Head of Public Enlightenment for the International Slide Rule Museum. Would you be interested in joining one of our meetings online? It would be great to have you!
@@oddassembler As opposed to what? Doing more multiplication tables? Perhaps some long division?
Do you know how boring most children find that stuff? If you intersperse it with stuff like this, especially if they get to *make* it, it keeps their interest.
Then they all clapped, right?
people were doing integrals well before the calculator
Straight to the moon and back with vacuum tubes and slide rules and today's students struggle with basics.
@@raymondfrye5017 What is your point?? Nasa had mathematicians, engineers, the best of the best doing it all. What does that have to do with students, thats supposedly "still struggle with basics"?
@@7invader Because students of today criticize the technology and science of yesteryear as behind the times.But when it comes to acquiring and applying old knowledge, that took us to the moon and back, they have great difficulty learning the fundamentals..They are too involved with computer distractions and idiotic,internet items to apply themselves.
I remember back when I am in grade school we memorized multiplication tables and plotting graphs manually. Kids today just don’t know what they have. My daughter now still cannot do 2 digit multiplication w/o pen and paper or calculator. My daughter doesn’t even have homeworks even light homework. To be fair they’re learning other things which we weren’t learning before. I am worried for the kids/youth of today not being able to cope not knowing fundamentals well. I mean they’ll be screwed if an EMP zapped all their modcons our society currently offers.
@Vincent I
I’m only 16 and we did what you said when I was in grade school.
You can still find slide rules in use today. There is a tool called a "proportion wheel" which is basically a circular slide rule for use in graphic design and printing.
Slide rules and proportion wheels are still used by journalists to help size blocks of text for newspapers and magazines. However, the proportion wheel is much much more popular because it's a bit faster and takes up less than half the space on your desk. I went to college in the late 1990s and they still taught how to use proportion wheels.
It still beats calculators at ratios, if you are dealing with multiple questioms about the same ratio.
Right on - exactly.
I know right? Just set the first ratio and you can solve them all at the speed that your eyeball can move.
if i was taught math using a slide rule, I feel I would have a better grasp of math than I do now... I've only known of its existence for 30 min. this thing is awesome.
It forces students to have a sort of "number sense", and use logic when solving problems rather than just reading off the answer.
Yeah , as someone who loves mechanical calculators this is brilliant
Slide rules are the best way to teach kids how to do logarithms too. Since the entire device just operates on using log(X) + log(Y) = log(XY) to solve everything. As well as teaches them to do square roots in their heads.
@@EvilSandwich it can do square roots? well damn!
@@sleepydog9968 They can do cube roots too. As well as calculate sine, cosine, tangent, common log, how many degrees are in a Radian, the value of pi, etc
I was in my apprenticeship when the first calculators were coming out. at the time i was learning about the slide rule in the classes of my machinist apprentice classes. I was sad, because everyone became enamored with the new calculators, and they stopped training us on the slide rule. 1973 for me. I thought the slide rule was wonderfully simply and with it i gained a new perspective on the relationships of numbers.
I was in college 1972-1976. The first scientific pocket calculator, the HP-35, cost $395.00 That's about $2500.00 accounting for inflation. You can get a pretty good desktop plus a tablet for that now.
I'm trying to hunt down a good slide rule. Took Tool & Die classes a couple years ago and number of people bitching about using Vernier tools amused the hell out of me. They also lost their damn minds when it came to using a Sine bar.
I still have a Pickering slide rule that I used while studying electronics in 1968. Coincidentally, my mother was an executive secretary who worked with Jack Kilby, the inventor of the pocket calculator, at Texas Instruments. Personally, I think the slide rule was a superior teaching tool as compared to the electronic calculator. Arriving at the correct answer while using a slide rule meant that you had to have an approximation of the result worked out in your head before reading the numbers. Also, you had to know where to put the decimal point. All in all, it was a wonderful device.
I am fortunate to have used a slide rule all through high school. Scientific calculators became affordable just as I started my undergraduate studies in engineering.
The skill of having an estimate for the correct calculation is sadly gone since students no longer have to keep track of the order of magnitude for a calculation...
I was a slide rule expert when I graduated in 1966. Listening to young people talk about it reminds me of something my daughter asked me once. She said, "Dad if we lose our electricity, how would we open tin cans?"
what does she think chainsaws are for?
Thanks for commenting. We’re a product of our generation, and I’m with her, all about tech. I remember thinking my dad’s slide rule was a ruler and screwing up my grade 2 measurement homework. He noticed and had to go out and get multiple rulers, one of my earliest memories
I'm hoping you showed her how to open cans with a nice manual can opener (which most people still have).
I'm a Mechanical Engineer, and I think all kids should be taught math using a slide rule. and handwritten math homework too. and nothing more than a basic scientific electronic calculator allowed through Calc 3. People would be so much better at math.
I've begun using and carrying a slide rule lately. I've even used a slide rule for driving to compute time enroute, and such (we also use slide rules still in aviation, the E6B).
Where do you buy slide rules?
@@macariohernandez5247 Ebay has many of different sizes, and types.
Honestly, I started collecting them a bit and I think they have niche use: as a multiplication tables and log log scale as a table for exponential growth or decay. They are inaccurate, arguably slower than calculator, sometimes they need extra thinking and planning, but sometimes it's great that you do unit conversions, proportions and inverse proportions using almost instantly. For this reason, I think the most useful slide rules today are advanced ones with LL/LL0 and folded scales.
@@pavelperina7629 the reason I advocate their use, is for early work, where the math is basic, and decimal places few. it helps kids develop mental math skills, helps them see visually what is happening, and will benefit them greatly later on.
Kids who learn to do math mentally, or on paper manually, without calculators, are objectively better at math and smarter than kids who learn with electronic calculators.
In my math education system, everyone would do assignments by hand, and with sliderules until at least middle school, at which point they could start using electronic calculators, but only basic ones. Then in high school they could start using a 2-line calculator, but must still show all their work on paper by hand. In college they would still be restricted to a 2-line calculator without integral/derivation solving features all the way through at least calc3.
Minus the slide rule, this is how I learned math and I can run circles around the younger people.
Sliderules are not always faster, but in certain circumstances they are FAR faster. And they also emphasize the importance of rounding, significant digits, and precision and accuracy. Very important concepts in science that students these days do not understand nor appreciate. Also, sliderules require regular use of logarithms, making such concepts far less confusing to students in precalc/calculus later on.
@@SoloRenegade I agree. I have technical university but before that logarithms and rational exponents were just a weird stuff that I learned during middle education, but it was never really used. At university they were useful for exponential decay (attenuation over distance, discharging capacitors) but when I saw slide rule I managed to notice how to use it, but to really understand why it works, I had to go into history to learn how to construct it using geometric progression of 1.01 (or similar number) and how to calculate any logarithm iteratively using square roots. And then faster method by decomposing number into 10^a+1.1^b+1.01^c+1.001^d and needing only 24 for 1.1^b (before it reaches 10) and 10 entries for each decimal number. then log(x)=a+b*log(1.1)+c*log(1.01) ... it was actually very interesting research. Sadly education system is focused on memorizing facts, formulas and not making mistakes, not on deep understanding. Despite using limits and derivations is easier that memorizing how to find minimum of parabola. The same with trigonometric identities.
We went to the moon using the slide rule...we replaced it with the calculator and haven't returned to the moon since. Oh the synchronicities!!!
we also designed things like the SR-71 with sliderules. I think slide rules are critical for teaching things like logarithms, and the importance of precision and accuracy, significant digits, etc. It gives a more intuitive understanding of math for those who learn to use them.
Yes we have. There were 11 more expeditions after the first.
I was in the Royal Australian Airforce (RAAF) in 1988 and on my course we were not only taught how to use a slide rule but we're also issued one (this was over ten years after they became obsolete). When I questioned my instructor why we were learning this he said it was important to know because you never know when your calculator is going to run out of batteries! Onece I graduated my course I very quickly forgot how to use the slide rule and relied on the calculator I was also issued.
In 2022 I bought a vintage slide rule and have started learning how to use it 😅
Hi, I’m the Head of Public Communications at the International Slide Rule Museum. Would you like to join our periodical on-line meetings?
Are these kids engineering students? And have they no idea what a slide rule is? What would they do in the future if say, an EMP somehow disabled all electronic devices and the rest of the world were waiting for these "engineers" to get us out of the new stone age? I'd better keep my old slide rule under lock and key in case such a thing happens!
"it doesn't work" no, you're just using it wrong. The tech-support geek in me wants to scream at them something along the lines of "Don't blame the tool for your own shortcomings! User error. Turn your brain off and back on again".
If you’re never shown something, how can you be expected to know what it is? I only know about things like this because of the long generational gaps in my family means this knowledge was living knowledge in my childhood.
TheMickvee Back in the 80’s when I was an engineering student people at university thought about re-introducing skills like these for exactly the reasons (EMP) you mentioned... Didn’t happen. So, no. Things move foreward, not backwards.
+ Jack Hanson: "If you’re never shown something, how can you be expected to know what it is?"
It's the purpose of engineers & engineering students to *figure stuff out!*
Every mysterious object is a challenge to your ability to figure stuff out. If you can't do that, you need to pursue some other line of work.
While you can't be expected to know what it is, you're expected to go into action to explore what it could be.
Google: "Dilbert, The Knack"
Fred
You are an engineer, either build a other, somehow emp proof it, or make a slide rule. Just kidding 1st world country would be doomed
The electronic calculator is obviously superior to a slide rule. But I think the electronic calculator has produced generations of engineers that tend to be punch and crunch. When the slide rule was all an engineer had, I think there was a better intuition of engineering of how variable affected each other.
True! The slide rule might look "outdated" in our electronic world, but this is still the best example of how organizing information can change the world. By condensing the entire trig and log tables onto these sliding sticks, we were able to build rockets, planes, bridges, power plants, etc.
@@milpne Yes... the Empire State and the Golden Gate bridge are still standing... and the Auckland Harbour Bridge
I still use my slide rule. It is very convenient when doing unit conversions.
I mentioned the term "Slide Rule" to a fellow engineer at work one time maybe 12 years ago. He didn't have the slightest idea what I was talking about. So, the next day, I brought in my old slide rule that I had used in my high school and college days starting back around 1964. There was a time when they were standard equipment for any engineering student and classes were taught on how to use them. Mine was a higher-end model and is still in very good condition.
Hi! I am the Head of Public Enlightenment for the International Slide Rule Museum. Would you be interested in joining one of our meetings online? It would be great to have you!
"No electronic calculators allowed"
-No problem
Yeah ... when I was in school all our Math subject were ALL manual. Calculators weren’t allowed. We were only allowed calculators during chemistry and physics when we deal with high precision and big numbers.
If I had one of those and know how to use for a exam... it would have been hilarious!
@@maninthemiddleground2316 : We used log tables that we had to construct at the beginning of the semester.
@@raymondfrye5017 you had to construct log tables by hand? damnnnn
@@Woodsmasher I intend to learn it, and if I ever go back to college, whip one out.
For what it's worth. I keep a sliderule around for converting fractions to decimals and adjusting ratios.
Calculators are usually better, but slide rules still do ratios faster and better than calculators. Its not even a contest.
Electronic Calculators made it possible for less qualified people to become Engineers and Scientists. Instead of Understanding math principles they just have to memorize "procedures" for finding the answers.
this is exactly the sort of shortsightedness my late math teacher tried to curb any time he recognized it. I distinctly remember a time he was trying to help one of my fellow students to grasp the principle behind some mathematical-concept-I-don't-remember-which-one, and kept insisting (rightfully so) that they were trying to just learn the procedure. It doesn't exercise your brain or teach you anything except how to "follow da rulez" someone else already laid out.
I disagree. I was a marginal high school math student in the 1960s, and using a slide rule and log tables was cumbersome and difficult for me. I went back and took math again at age forty circa 1990, when graphing calculators and Mathcad and such made it possible for ME to visualize mathematics in a way that excellent students could probably always do, but I couldn't. So calculators and computers allowed me to learn more real math than I could without them.
Still that only went so far. I did fine in the first two quarters of regular college calculus, but took the third quarter twice and couldn't complete it.
Too bad! I would have like to have taken calculus based statistics and physics.
@@SeattlePioneer Basically you are not too swift are you? Nature weeded you out.
No, I retired at age 57 with several million dollars in assets, and no liabilities. That was eleven years ago. After living for ten year with no earned income, I calculated that my net worth had INCREASED by 50% since I retired.
A few IQ points short of being a capable scientist or engineer though. Eventually nature will weed us all out. But not yet ---not for me.
Will Skubi Your answer is ludicrous and self justifying for your own limitations.
sounds just like having a modern teenager given a dial telephone that used to be so standard and asked to dial home.
Verry entertaining. I was introduced to the slide rule in basic electronics school in 1961. As soon as afordable electronics calculator were introduced i STOPED USING a slide rule. But the use of the slide rule did teach me to use approximations, scaling that have been with me all my life. I am 78 and I still do mental math when buying an item and know what cost + tax will be.
A friend was so entertained when his young nephew, having to hand-crank the window in the pickup, thought the that was the coolest option ever!
Have a small collection of these devices; I love the idea of calculating without a paper or chalkboard or something you have to plug in. And I'm not a math student at all.
Ooo I’m definitely jealous! I don’t own one at all but i hope to soon... hope to have a thorough understanding of them and how to use them as well. I’m so glad I discovered them awhile back, I’m always fascinated with numbers and arithmetic operations. I know if I had one and learned to use it properly, I’d discover and understand a lot more about mathematics in general! I hear they don’t manufacture them at all anymore which is a total shame... I wonder if I can find a virtual one online or through the App Store tho
Hi! I am the Head of Public Enlightenment for the International Slide Rule Museum. Would you be interested in joining one of our meetings online? It would be great to have you!
Some famous people who used slide rules include James Watt, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Wernher von Braun, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Janis Joplin, et al.
Nicely made video. I never learned o use the standard slide rule, but when I was ten I learned to use the circular rule by Uncle received a patent for. My Uncle- Carl Wern- received a patent in 1968 for his ABC circular slide rule which included decimal points. This "unfair" advantage led many school teachers banning its use in the classroom.
BTW, I have a few of these slide rules in mint condition for sale.
A slide rule is simply a moving logarithm table. Any high school math student (let alone any MIT student) should have no problem in understanding it very soon.
EDIT: I have a Faber Castell 1/87
Hi! I am the Head of Public Enlightenment for the International Slide Rule Museum. Would you be interested in joining one of our meetings online? It would be great to have you!
Not only did we have slide rules like these, children, but we also had round versions for aircraft pilot navigation and scuba tables as well.
nick f Good to know. I never got my license and I know they have purpose build electronic handheld devices now.
Somewhere i still have my father's old circular one used during WW2 when he flew Catalinas in the Pacific for the RNZAF.
One of my prize possessions is a Teledine Post 44CA-600. This one is the demo model from the MIT Coop, proudly bearing the small hole that attached the chain to the counter. Somewhere around 1975-76 it was in a box on that same counter marked down to $5.00. It still lives on my desk and is undergoing restoration (replacing the glass cursor that broke in a lab accident and was hastily replaced with a crudely scribed piece of Plexiglas. I know this is not technically true, but I still refer to it as "The last slide rule sold by the Coop".
Bill Spear -- How did the slide rule restoration turn out? I have a Mannheim ACU-MATH No. 500 slide rule in excellent condition, with the original box as well. I'm just starting to learn how to use it. Well, I should say that I'm just now re-learning how to use it. I haven't used one since the late 1970's........
@@ironcladranchandforge7292 I have one of these. They can do powers and roots. Way cool stuff.
I can't believe I stumbled on this interesting article and was surprised to fine the first post being mine from 7 years ago!
One advantage, hardly mentioned anymore as such, is that having to keep track of the decimal point in your head and be limited to 3 significant digits is great training for loving scientific notation and also appreciating how many science problems and quick estimations really don't need more than 3 significant figures. Ok, that excludes all of finance! It also provided an easy transition to RPN calculators, which have many advantages if one is willing to meet the computer halfway and put all the operands before the operators.
Cute. MIT students are the best, always have been, and still are. We take precision for granted theses days. The slipstick allowed long chains of calculations involving multiplication/division, squares, cubes, square and cube roots, trig, logs and more. All to about 3 significant figures precision, which is surprisingly adequate in many cases. I love the comment, "If it can't do integrals, what use is it!".
In high school I used one of those 6 foot demonstration units for some JETS (Junior Engineering Technical Society) meetings.
The missed point is this. By leaving the decimal point handling totally to the user, important estimation skills are learned. Instant cube roots of any number are available, to 2-3 digits. Knowing why that works and why the cube scale is the main C scale shrunk and tiled 3 times left to right enhances one's numerical understanding. We mainly used them for physics class homework.
Before electronic calculators, this was a brilliant and quite helpful invention!
Question: why the focus on integrals? Warning: my knowledge of calculus is rather basic.
in 1961 I went to navy electronics school and learned the slide rule. You knew approximate answers before the more accurate answer, learn to scale answers learn the powers of 10,. To this day I use mental math that seems to make the young think I am super smart. All thanks to learning to use the slide rule
@@VRichardsn Perhaps it's one of the most common roadblocks on the math complexity highway.
Differentiation is easier. Integration, arguably more powerful, useful and philosophical (?), is closer to an art.
But you are right. It's not appropriate for slide rules. It was just that the spoiled - in a good way - techies of today summed it up so colorfully with that quip, ""If it can't do integrals, what use is it!". I just noticed your comment after I was notified of Joe's answer, today. :-)
@@mitchbogart8094 I can totally relate to the first part of your post. I passed Calculus *barely* and only because I nailed the diferentiation part.
I taught my kid to use one. He graduated from HS in 2008 and used it in school. Oddly, people thought it was really cool - admittedly he had some pretty nerdy friends.
It's a different way of thinking, analogue and spatial versus digital, like telling time with a traditional clock. Once you see the slide rule is based on logarithms and logarithms of logarithms it all falls into place. But for students today a logarithm is what you get when you push a button and not a number you get spatially from a slide rule or by interpolating from a table. Likely few realize that the distance from one to two on a slide rule is .3 times the length of the scale which is the common log of 2.
What I just witnessed was terrifying. How can a math or engineering student get as far as an elite college and never have heard of a slide rule? New math is a pox on all future generations.
what happens when their batteries go dead? how can they just push buttons and not understand the process?
@mister kluge but they remain in intellectual stasis because they don't understand the process beyond pushing a button. No "why"
@mister kluge good luck with that after Trump's zombie apocalypse
You don't need one at all these days, and you'd struggle to even find one in schools.
But most of these students' attitudes to seeing one were incredibly poor. You'd think as students at MIT they'd at least be more intrigued and try harder to work out how to use it.
@@tams805 Ding. The lack of curiosity and disdain for the tools of the past (as well as the achievements those tools crafted) was alarming. Like if you found out that the primary tool used to send the first man to the moon was analog, a student who was really concerned with the nuts and bolts of engineering would want to find out how it worked.
I have a number of slide rules, and one of the things I like about them is that they automatically show the relationships between the numbers, and if you, for argument's sake, set up 2xa, it also shows you what 2x any other number is as well. Our eldest son and I were setting up maths problems, he with a calculator and me with my first slide rule, a 1/2 sized, 10cm one, and I was getting the answers to within a few 1,000ths. He hasn't got a real one yet, but he does have a, fully functional, virtual one on his iPhone :)
Love them.
Hi! I am the Head of Public Enlightenment for the International Slide Rule Museum. Would you be interested in joining one of our meetings online? It would be great to have you!
That is absolutely brilliant. Thanks for the explanation! (My condolences for your difficulty finding intelligent students aside...)
I learned about slide rules, when my math teacher joked about it. When I came home I looked it up and eventually bought myself one. I am really amazed that this simple tool that was used by many people over the decades is so forgotten today!
I just buckled down and ordered one myself--still hazy on what scales I should have been looking for.
I have one of those big slide rules given to me by my daughter's teacher when I went to give a talk in her class. In high school all the students who took physics and math classes carried around a slide rule. In college all the engineering students were carrying around a K&E slide rule; I remember it had a leather case that I could look through my belt. I left college in the late 60's to join the Navy and when I returned in 74 the new thing was the HP calculator. That calculator basically killed the slide rule, I think.
That and the cheaper TI-30 model too. I still have my grandfather's Pickett N1000 and I learned it for fun.
God help us if these were engineering students. Sad.
Imagine how one can ultimately memorize the combinations of numbers and resulting values using this just by visual after using it for a long period of time.
In a children's playground there was a sign next to the slide that said:
SLIDE RULES:
1. No climbing up the chute.
2. Do not slide down until the slide is clear of other children.
3. No horseplay.
4. No spitting.
4. Calculating devices with logarithmically spaced calibration markings.
I have two slide rules and know how to use them. I keep them around to be prepared when technology dies or for machine singularity.
Hi! I am the Head of Public Enlightenment for the International Slide Rule Museum. Would you be interested in joining one of our meetings online? It would be great to have you!
Sad to see that these elite students didn't seem to find the slide rules interesting or amazing.
I’m in my 50s, got my Bachelors 5 years ago. I was a bit of a smartass, but could backup my antics. I got all As, not because I was smarter, but was more mature and had more real-world experience.
In Intro to Accounting, the professor said our first quiz was to be done without electronic calculators. So the day of the test, I pulled out my drafter’s ruler and slide rule.
😊😊😊
I still used a slide rule in US Navy nuclear power school in 1977. We were one of the last classes to do so. I still have one, and use it occasionally.
The first Zeppelin engineers hired by Von Zeppelin probably used bamboo slide rules. A earned one unit of semester credit for taking the first week of the two week slide rule course, Fall '69, Shasta College. First week was just basic pre-trig. algebraic use. Second week, for an additional unit, was advanced, from trig. into calculus use.
2x3=6: "if 1 is 3, then 2 is 6." So you put 1 at 3, and find 2 on the scale; whatever 2 is lighted up with, is the answer.
One of the best practical demonstrations of log(x) + log(y) = log(xy) you can find.
I have 4, growing knew what it was but the sliderule era ended before I entered high school. I have taught myself how to use them. It is a natural proportion machine and law of sines too.
Some MIT students nowadays appear to be surprisingly ignorant and uncurious.
I had a high school chemistry teacher who had been teaching in the same classroom since 1951. He was raised on slide rules and had a giant slide rule above the chalkboard that students in the first few rows cold read.
We had one in our math classromm back in -86, but noone showed us how it worked. We also had huge posters from the huge Swedish FACIT typewriter company that went belly up when mechanical calculator was out :)
slide rule and Swanson square are amazing
I'm not much older than these kids but my reaction was to look on ebay for a nice one
The Pickett or K&E Slide rules are great professional models.
@@EvilSandwich hmmmm thank you!
@@stephlrideout I have a Pickett N1010-ES. And it's a great general-purpose professional model. But they're all pretty good
@@EvilSandwich I have an an abacus and just like the slide ruler, no batteries required 🤓
The proper comparison is not a slide rules versus scientific calculator, but paper and pencil versus slide rule for statistics, engineering and scientific calculations.
One chemistry professor I had in 1970s college required his students to buy, learn, and use the slide rule for classroom calculations. It greatly improved my ability to read scales, estimate answer before arriving at solution to math problems, and understand principles of math. No electronic calculators were allowed in class. I was not surprised to see flippant attitudes towards the slide rule by the "modern" students in this video. I witnessed similar attitudes by others in regard to engineering ethics during and after my college career.
In a few years, "elite" students will show the same flippant attitude to - then - historical electronic calculators.
And they will be equally unwilling to use one, instead of the Math-AI on their phones that directly gives them the answer...
keep your eyes open at good will and estate sales, some of these were very expensive and made of genuine ivory, and had gold fittings. I just started to learn advanced mathematics and engineering when the calculators came out and everyone abandoned the slide rule overnight. that was 1973, a union machinist apprenticeship.
EBay is also a fantastic resource for finding old professional models. I got my 1959 Pickett N1010-ES from eBay practically new condition and with the original leather case.
It was hardly ever used
@@EvilSandwich I think the slide rule helps you visualize math relationships and helps learn calculus and higher math. i never completed college, because i spent too much time doing math homework, and trying to really understand it not just get required classes and a decent grade point average. I became a machinist so get to use math every day, and it is satisfying to solve math problems. Amazing how most people stumble thru life with no clue about geometry trig and all that fun stuff.
we had to use a slide rule in my high school chemistry class, because pocket calculators were too expensive...i never got the hang of it...uck!
Are you sure these are ENGINEERING students??? They don't seem to understand the concept of LOGARITHMS where multiplications turn into additions
@Marco Guerini Saludos Sr. Guerini: Es refrescante oír un estudiante motivarse a dominar los fundamentos de la matemática y la escritura.
Entiendo que cayó un puente en Italia por falta de pericia en la ingenieria y diseño.
Suerte
I never learned the slide rule. Scientific calculators were available but expensive and not something a kid at school used. No, my school taught us how to use a Book of Tables. It was like astrology!
Welcome. I learned how to use tables and create them with my grandfather. That was how I got through Chemistry.
It's nice to see that even _some_ MIT students are ignorant. Some are even stupid. All of those are young.
This makes no sense. These are MIT students. Isn't the history of technology teached at MIT? Before you can understand modern day history you have to know your history. They really had no clue?
It is a problem teaching youth the way technology has progressed. How mathematics and history are taught today, leaves one wondering.
Regards
When I started High School Chemistry in 1972 - one of our first labs was the intro to the slide rule. Log Tables anyone???
the visual alone could help me remember some stuffs
I thought I was really hitting the big time in 1966 when i was struggling with 6th Form/Yr 12 Maths ...in NZ... I bought ..woww. a Faber Castell model....in 1973 at Otago Uni I saw my first, plug in pocket calculator..had still never even heard the word "computer" at that stage.
2:46 - LOL, she DIVIDED 8 by 4 and got 2. Interesting, I forgot that you can divide with a slide rule. A long time ago I used to think you could only count UP with them. I knew you could count down but forgot about that part!
The slide rule was invented by an English mathematician William Oughtred in 1622 so it lasted 350 years.
You can't buy them anymore. I was thrilled back in 1975 to see them on sale at the Uni book store. I bought one, it was all I could afford. Next year, nothing but calculators.
So these fine young gems of intellectual powerhouses are what pass for MIT material these days. It's fine if you've never seen a slide rule before. The fact that you cannot instantly recognize a log scale and quickly deduce its function and even its operation speaks volumes.
Regarding 3:09, on February 1, 1972 a brand new Hewlett-Packard HP-35 scientific calculator cost $395 which would be equivalent to $2,908.53 in 2023. In 1972, college students who had wealthy parents could afford to spend $395 on a HP-35. Although the new hand held calculators were fast and precise, their Light Emitting Diodes display soon depleted their battery power and had to be recharged often or had to be plugged in via an AC adapter. For comparison in 1972, a scientific log-log slide rule was more affordable costing around $17 which would be equivalent to $125.18 in 2023. In 1987 Solar Powered Liquid Crystal Displays replaced Light Emitting Diodes in calculators, because LCDs consume much less battery power than do LEDs. Nowadays in 2023, the cost of a scientific calculator is as inexpensive as $6 which would be equivalent to 82 cents in 1972.
Or they could sell their calculator and found a company with the money like Steve Wozniak did. LCDs became popular much earlier, in late 70s.
I saw a calculator in a dollar store with square roots ets. one lonely dolllar.
sometimes i weep for my generation of fellow “engineers” from my experience, within my own major, these people are to lazy to actually learn how maths works and understand that its a tool you use to solve problems, not problems to memorize how to “do the number thing” theres a tangible difference between knowing how to solve a calculus equation and being able to use and deeply understand the concepts of calculus to use it to your advantage. Many even switch from ME to ET because, ya know, “calculus is useless” or “its too theoretical” which tbh i can kind of agree that last bit
On the contrary,Calculus does it all. When you deal with rates,maxima and minima,instants,etc. You must use calculus.
Calculus has always been criticized as being non-rigorous logically. Example:
When you have two points on a curve,what is an instantaneous value?if both points coincide at the same moment then t2-t1 equals zero.But you can't divide by zero so that your concept of instantaneity is invalid.That's how the idea of a limit came into existence.
This is what built the U-2 spy plane as well as the SR-71 blackbird.
could a person with dyslexia use a slide rule, or would that be tempting fate?
I'm dyslexic, I can use one no problem
Thankfully, scales are pretty dyslexic friendly. You should be good to go.
The two girls are awesome. The one on the left..."but it can't do integrals." The one on the right's t-shirt...E/c^2 = m, √-1 = I, & For PV/nR, nR/nR = 1, so PV = 1. Sum it up, I'm est. DOB (hard to see because she's sitting).
I'm 68 years old and we learned to use a slide rule in science class. To this day I think it's such a brilliant invention that it must have been given to us by aliens.
What model are the slide rules?
I wish they would add a third part to the definition at 44 seconds:
The calculating tool that enabled humans to walk on the moon, among other great things.
"It can't do integrals." True, but after I finished calculus I did integrals by the table method - look it up in a table of integrals. Have these students seen one of those?
Just wait until the video about MIT students trying to read analog clocks!
I still have my grandfathers rule in brasil
In the 80s, we were still taught how to use that in HS.
I got all the way through high school algebra/trig and SAT (math score 740) without either a slide rule or a calculator. I have no idea how we did it. I suspect high school kids now do a more sophisticated version of algebra than we did. I graduated in 1972.
Thank you.
I've been using electronic calculators since the early 70's but if we ever get e.m.p.'d I still have several of my old "slip sticks".
Ah kids. I grew up in the age when slipsticks were giving way to calculators. But, owning a couple of analog types.... once you unlike the mysteries of them... Ya know those really old dudes who came up with the idea were mathematicians AND engineers.
And while I'm not expert, on just the easy side I can do ya at least 3 ways to multiply, show you how to divide, show you "X x Pi" without even using the slide, give you a reciprocal (1/x) and on the flip side, again not even using the slide, just the stators, squares and square roots, cubes and cube roots. And I'm just a self taught neophyte.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE calculators, whether it's an actually calc, or a smart phone. I love technology. But at the same time, come the post apocalypse, Ya better get off your duff because the people making out like bandits will be the people who can charge your fancy calculator because they have solar power, the ones that can make stuff like bows, crossbows, or black powder weapons, the simpletons like me who can do some basic math, and the overlords who can not only use a slipstick to full potential, but also teach to the elite few. It won't be the person with the most guns and bullets, those things are finite and will break down in just a few years. It will be the person who knows how to farm, raise life stock, or use a really old mathematic instrument.
Don’t you need folded scales for multiplying by pi ?
@@jangamecuber folded scales make it a lot easier. My stick has folded scales but the normal scales have pi also marked on them. For a simple problem like 2xPi can place the cursor on 2 and just read the answer on the folded scale or vice versa. But you can use the normal scales of you so choose.
Hi! I am the Head of Public Enlightenment for the International Slide Rule Museum. Would you be interested in joining one of our meetings online? It would be great to have you!
For me Curta was the best mechanical calculator
These kids are so clueless...
Slide rules show relations between numbers and operations, unlike today’s calculators or any other calculation device. They NEED to integrate these back into education in order to show kids those unique relations between numbers and operations, which can help give better understanding to mathematics all around.
Why would they need to know how these work...
@@TheReck12 I stated the reasons why kids should learn how these work already, but to recap:
Slide rules reveal relationships between numbers and different operations amongst them, unlike a calculator that only shows one answer for one problem. If you use one of these things to find an answer to one problem, you can look up and down the entire thing and compare how other numbers are lining up with others in the same operation, and gain a different perspective of the relationship between them all that you could never see upon any other device; leading to a deeper understanding of the equation & mathematics in general.
I admit that slide rules are pretty useless in the professional field these days, but are a MUST for schools. They don't need anything fancy. Just a cheapo A,B,C,D,K,CI,L plastic pocket rule is more than enough to get kids started on learning the number patterns.
In the future, calculators will be voice input AI machines where you just read it the problem and it spits out the answer. All you'll need to know to pass an engineering course is how to read. The nicer models will have a camera and printer on them and you just take a picture of the problem and it will print the answer on a sticky note that you place on the test. These devices will take all the drudgery out of getting an engineering degree!
We basically already have apps that do that. And why would you need to print anything? Just copy it
When the lights go out... ☹
great work
None of these students impressed me.
In fact, I'm more than a little concerned.
WOW. I can't believe they are this clueless....this makes me sad
I know, right?
That's the generation who doesn't know how to read a clock with hands...
@@tiberiu_nicolae I found one as a kid, in the house it took my a couple minutes to figure it out. Poate prin clasa a șasea.... nu cred că sunt așa bătrân la 31...
To be fair, sometimes you need a person to give you a quick run down on how the C and D scales work before it all falls into place. After that, most people are good to go. And folding scales aren't obvious at all.
Twilight Sparkle: "ITS A SLIDE RULE!"
yer but the kids had brains years ago
2x4 is too simple. Why not something more complicated like 234×41? That would blow their minds
I bought a slide rule off of ebay. I have learned how to use a few of the scales to some proficiency. I'm hoping to get proficient enough to troll a few students and maybe instructors at my university.
And by troll an instructor, I mean whip one out when they say "No calculators" on the test.
i took delivery of a lovely old german wooden slide rule from ebay recently , £6 GBP i'm having so much fun with it
I want that big ten footer!
AVENDRE: J'ai 140 règles de calcul tout neuf N°57/88-Reitz-N-Etudiant & N°57/89-ETUDIANT LOG LOG.Fabrication allemagne en 1965.
1916?
Really!
The very first electronic calculator was not on the market till about 71 or 72. And it cost over a full months wages!
The first inexpensive calculator, the TI-30 appeared in 1976.
So the slide rule was the instrument of choice right through the 1960's, and well into the 70's!
The Saturn V moon rocket was designed mostly with Engineers working out their equations with the slide rule. And most Engineering student were REQUIRED to learn it's use right into the mid-70's.
So, you should have titled your video: "Bringing the 1960's and 1970's into the 21st century.
And because of this simple device. Today kids can go, "Hey Cortana what is .......".
I find it sad that these are the people who are getting into MIT. where are the nerds?
I have worked with the logarithmic ruler for a long time and I have to tell you that it is a very useful tool if you know what you are calculating. That scene from Apollo 13 was illustrative, but a person who only calculates linear functions repeatedly will definitely use a logarithmic ruler because they know what they're calculating and it's very fast. His calculation was most certainly verified by the mainframe if it was used for correction. Another person who also knows how to work with a ruler, without a previous routine of working with operations, would not be able to do it in a quick time. Watch out for that. I still use the logarithmic ruler in special functions because I know it and it's easier than on a calculator with operations (the ruler can combine several operations into one just by moving the slider). We all have our own tricks for a particular type of mathematical operation and that's why we are very efficient with a ruler. A logarithmic ruler in my day was always a sign of mathematical prowess. Many smart people have failed to work with a ruler.