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Nostalgia - a slide rule

ValeryOchkov
24-Ruby IV

Nostalgia - a slide rule

I put in order my desk drawer and found this is what:

Then I found it in Internet - http://terni.ru/slide_rule

LogSlide.png

67 REPLIES 67

By the way the biggest slide rule on which to compute the orbit of the first Soviet satellite (Sputnik) was the size of a few meters.

BigLogSlide.png

When I was going to high school, we had a similar big slide rule in the front of most math classes. We were trying to beat the Russians to the Moon, and the slide rule was one of the tools to do it with.

I should have known there was no "slide rule gap".

MichaelH wrote:

We were trying to beat the Russians to the Moon, and the slide rule was one of the tools to do it with.

Leonid Brezhnev has collected Soviet scientists and said:

- We will not fly to the Moon after the Americans - we will fly to Sun!

Scientists argue:

- The temperature on Sun is a million degrees!

Brezhnev calms them:

- We will fly at night!

While I wouldn't bet that this very slide rule from the St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University was used for Sputnik calculations, a slide rule (normal size, I guess) owned by the inventor of Sputnik satellite (or "artificial moon", as they called it at those times) once sold at Sotheby's for around US $ 25,000.

The longest slide rule in Guiness book used to be around 107 meters - marginally unhandily.

StPetersburgStatePolytechnicalUniv-Display_th.jpg

Werner Exinger wrote:

While I wouldn't bet that this very slide rule from the St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University...

By the way. The founder of PTC (Семен Гейсберг - Samuel Peisakhovich Geisberg - преподаватель начертательной геометрии) is from St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University!

Then tell him or her to start throwing some serious development resources at Mathcad Prime!!!  😉

....
Proud user of Mathcad since MS-DOS days.

Valery Ochkov schrieb:

I put in order my desk drawer and found this is what:

Then I found it in Internet - http://terni.ru/slide_rule

So you may be interested in http://sliderulemuseum.com/

And then - why not a cylindrical or circular one - http://www.oughtred.org/jos/OldRussianCylindricalAndCircularSlideRules-Leipala.pdf

RichardJ
19-Tanzanite
(To:Werner_E)

I have an Otis Kings Pocket Calculator (http://www.svpal.org/~dickel/OK/OtisKing.html) , a slide rule with a 1m sprial scale on a cylinder.

Otis+Kings+pocket+calculator.jpg

Mine's the model "L". Haven't used it in a long time!

Richard Jackson wrote:

I have an Otis Kings Pocket Calculator (http://www.svpal.org/~dickel/OK/OtisKing.html) , a slide rule with a 1m sprial scale on a cylinder.

Otis Kings pocket calculator.jpg

Mine's the model "L". Haven't used it in a long time!

I have seen such device in a museum. It was a slide rule and a telescope for the navigator ship. Lets change. I will send you my rule (see the first message), and you send me yours.

Mine has no telescope, it's just a slide rule. It was given to me by my father, as a novelty, after I got my first electronic calculator (a Casio), so it's not available for sale or exchange. You will have to make do with the photo

Richard Jackson wrote:

Mine has no telescope, it's just a slide rule. It was given to me by my father, as a novelty, after I got my first electronic calculator (a Casio), so it's not available for sale or exchange. You will have to make do with the photo

Sorry, it was a joke!

My mother used this wood device (счёты - Russian abakus: считать - to calculate):

счеты.png

She could not only add, subtract, multiply and divide with this "computer", and take the square root!

I keep one in case of emergencies.

This is the last one I used for real ...

http://www.asa2fly.com/images/Prod/Pms/Cmp/E6B_HiRes.jpg

Thanks to all!

Teachers told me at school (Cold War times) that "stupid Americans" (see the poster bellow - no one wo- or black man) are studying a slide rule with log scale (an automation multiplication and division) only in elite selected universities. American "stupid students" in high schools and in others universities are studying slide rules with linear scale (see the video below) but not with a logarithmic scale - an automation of addition and subtraction.

Sorry - but the name "a Slide Rule" is wrong. We say in Russia - a Logarithmic Rule. It is more correct

How many this old IBM calculators is now equal to one PC with Mathcad?

LogIBM.png

A slide rule with linear scale:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKQ4Xcs_uUo

One soviet poster with a slide rule (more than 150 American Engineers and equal one БЭСМ computer - see above):

StuartBruff wrote:

I keep one in case of emergencies.

This is the last one I used for real ...

http://www.asa2fly.com/images/Prod/Pms/Cmp/E6B_HiRes.jpg

Fine! Like a wristwatch. Any Swiss wristwatch!

There is a Swiss wristwatch with a slide rule.

There is an interesting new Russian word - понты - ponty (a show-off in English?).

So. Swiss wristwatchs - it's a typical show-off.

A Swiss wristwatch with a slide rule - this is show-off in the square.

One dialogue of two new Russian:
- Tomorrow is the birthday of Ivan! What we will present to him?
- Let's give to him a Swiss wristwatch!
- He already has a Swiss wristwatch.
- Let's give him a book!
- He already has a book.
- Let's give him a Swiss wristwatch with a slide rule!
- Fresh idea! What is it?

- See please http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitling_SA

One more fresh idea!

A wall clock with a slide rule instead of the pendulum.
This is very convenient!
You can move the slider (roughly) and the glass (exactly) to set a precise line of the clock!

You can calculate with this clock too!

WandWatch.png

PS

One wand clock with a slide rule:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKQ4Xcs_uUo

Valery Ochkov wrote:

One more fresh idea!

A wall clock with a slide rule instead of the pendulum.

A porpos! A clock - a pendulum - a rule - a meter rule!

Wath is meter?

1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line!? No

The circumference of the Earth through the poles 40,007,863 m? No

The origim meter is so:

meter.png

A wristwatch with a slide rule or Mathcad!

Why not!?

iWatch - a future iWatch with Windows 8:

iWatch.png

Valery Ochkov wrote:

StuartBruff wrote:

I keep one in case of emergencies.

This is the last one I used for real ...

http://www.asa2fly.com/images/Prod/Pms/Cmp/E6B_HiRes.jpg

Fine! Like a wristwatch. Any Swiss wristwatch!

There is a Swiss wristwatch with a slide rule.

There is an interesting new Russian word - понты - ponty (a show-off in English?).

So. Swiss wristwatchs - it's a typical show-off.

A Swiss wristwatch with a slide rule - this is show-off in the square.

One dialogue of two new Russian:
- Tomorrow is the birthday of Ivan! What we will present to him?
- Let's give to him a Swiss wristwatch!
- He already has a Swiss wristwatch.
- Let's give him a book!
- He already has a book.
- Let's give him a Swiss wristwatch with a slide rule!
- Fresh idea! What is it?

- See please http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitling_SA

Нет! Русские лучше!

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad257/werner_010/AAA1/NRK2_2.jpg

This is one of the slide rules (навигационная линейка) for aircraft navigator.

NaviLin.png

tietjee
14-Alexandrite
(To:ValeryOchkov)

i lways keeped one handy when calculators first came out. the battery never died.

there is one in my desk, which i show all new engineerings we hire. we had one that did not even know what it was. it should still be taught at school to help with learning the importance of logs. not sure were we would get any for the class.

Do you know that engineers use (used) slide rules, sorry, logarithmic rule with base 10 but mathematics - with base e (2.71828)!

Joke!

But seriously, the slide rule of algebra is the Laplace transform, which replaces the taking of derivation on multiplication and taking the antiderivative to the division. A Normal slide rule replaces multiplication by addition and division on subtraction.

Laplace.png

Valery Ochkov wrote:

I put in order my desk drawer and found this is what:

Then I found it in Internet - http://terni.ru/slide_rule

/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/2-198045-45910/LogSlide.png

The desk drawer where I found this old slide rule was covered with a old sheet of paper. This paper was not simple, but graphing paper, and not a simple graphing paper - logarithmic graphing paper, and not a simple logarithmic graphing paper (x or y) but a double logarithmic graphing paper - log by x and by y!

GP.png

One more nostalgia...

Scottish engineers have to wear Scottish kilts with same design

Simple paper was a deficit in the Soviet era, but the millimeter paper (Russian name of this paper) was in excess.

Sellers of packaged goods such paper

Now in Mathcad:

GPmcd.png

My colleague brought me a slide rule of his father.

One side

LL1.png

second side

LL2.jpg

My little nostalgia exhibition

exebition.jpg

Slide rules are not completely dead. If you don't like pushing virtual calculator buttons on your phone, your can use a virtual slide rule instead

Slide Rule - screenshot thumbnail

One more virtual one

Slide Rule

ValeryOchkov wrote:

My little nostalgia exhibition

One from my nostalgia-collection:

MC6.jpg

I have a set of those myself!  - And my old slide rule... and a virtual rule for the computer that is the exact same rule, except for color! Mine is ivory, the html is color.  I'll check he license and see if I can post it here.  Thanks for starting this, it's a good walk down memory lane.

 

I had the good fortune to meet and work with a masterful engineer, Lee Kilgore, who stopped filing for patents after 37 or so.  He had a slide rule for a necktie clip and he'd use his thumbnail for the cursor!  It was far too short of a career overlap, he has gone on to what I am sure is a rich reward.

....
Proud user of Mathcad since MS-DOS days.
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