Do You Know How to Use a Slide Rule?

Slide Rules. Adding Machines. Pocket Calculators. Do You Know How to Use a Slide Rule?

Do you remember when slide rules were more accurate than calculators?

Slide Rule

My father taught me how to use a slide rule. I was forever grateful when I got into high school math classes.

An accountant, he was used to adding machines.

Pocket Calculators Introduced

But, he came slowly to the pocket calculators of the 1960s.

He explained that, as slide rules accumulate with precision, for equations with several steps, they are more accurate than calculators, which round off and start over at each calculation.

Precision and Estimation

Because slide rules require that you keep track of the decimal place, they also teach you to estimate, as a counter to mis-remembering where the decimal place should be.

The slide rule was finally overcome by the introduction of low-priced pocket scientific calculators. Texas Instruments introduced the TI-30 in 1976 for $25, less than the cost of a good slide rule.

What useful things did your father teach you when you were growing up?

Are they still useful, or overcome by technology?

What are you teaching your grandchildren?

To the priceless gift of time you give your grandchildren.

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Carol Covin, “Granny-Guru”

Author, “Who Gets to Name Grandma? The Wisdom of Mothers and Grandmothers”

http://newgrandmas.com