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Slide
Rules!
How my interest in slide rules began
I saw a stack of free books at the school library and stopped to look (free book? are you kidding? of course I stopped!) I found a couple nifty ones - an old (1938) volume on analytical geometry and a 1955 reprint of a 1943 manual -- K+E 4081 Log Log Duplex Decitrig slide rule.
I picked up the book, even though I don't own a slide rule, because it made me nostalgic. My father was a chemical engineer and, like many engineers, wasn't quite sure how to socialize so when I was small he would play with me by showing me math and science stuff. Along with the typical Barbies and stuffed ponies, some of my childhood toys were a hair hygrometer, plastic samples and bottles of acetone, and Dad's old slide rule from college.
I started looking through the book over lunch and decided I had to have a slide rule! So I ordered a Sterling 594 (see pictures of the Sterling 594) from slide-rules.com. Some people are quite devoted slide rule collectors but I honestly don't know that I'll ever be a collector myself. Still, I may get at least one more slide rule at some point because my Sterling doesn't have the P, P' and Q scales for sin/cos readings and also for solving Pythagorean calculations like sqrt(a^2 + b^2). (Those scales are typically a bit more unusual to find.)
edit: I've decided to collect slide rules after all. My focus is on military slide rules. Especially slide rules from the WWII era, but really any military slide rules.
But still, I do think the slide rule is pretty neat and it helps train a mathematical brain in a way that calculators don't (I think slide rules and calculators are complementary, though, not mutually exclusive.) When the apocalypse comes, and all the batteries are used up, I will still be able to calculate quickly with fair precision. Won't the other survivors who didn't think to look beyond their pocket calculators be envious?
I have been reading the most wonderful beginner's introduction to the slide rule! I have to endorse this book, even though it is out of print and might be difficult to find. It's fantastic, and even if you don't think you ever want to use a slide rule, you should have a look at it just for the chapter on logarithms as it's the clearest, easiest-to-understand explanation of logs I've ever seen!
An
Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule.
by Isaac Asimov
Good luck in your
hunting! It's usually listed at around sixty dollars, but if you keep shopping
you can sometimes find it at a lower price. (Or do what I did and check
it out from the library.) While
you're at it, pick up a copy of Asimov's On Numbers. You'll be
glad you did!
My slide rule links
Places to buy slide rules