An early computing device invented by Reverend William Oughtred in London in the 17th century. Primarily for multiplication and division, the slide rule has two stationary sets and one sliding set of ...

Before there were apps for tablets and smartphones, before mathematics education software was easily installed on personal computers, before electronic calculators entered professional practice and ...

We have to like [Nicola Marras]. First, he wrote a great mini-book about analog computers. Then he translated it into English. Finally, he opened with a picture of Mr. Spock using an E6-B flight slide ...

Used by engineers for centuries, they were displaced by pocket calculators and all but forgotten until Mr. Shawlee created a subculture of obsessives and cornered the market. By Alex Traub For about ...

While some (math-phobics) still may relish the simple beauty and non-threatening functionality of the abacus, there are those who have made the transition to more challenging computing gadgets—many ...

The end of the age of the slide rule: one computer can replace 150 engineers (with slide rules). A campaign by IBM advertising its computer in 1951 (credit: WIKIPEDIA/PUBLIC DOMAIN) The slide rule was ...

You have that slide rule in the back of the closet. Maybe it was from your college days. Maybe it was your Dad’s. Honestly. Do you know how to use it? Really? All the scales? That’s what we thought.

For about 350 years, humanity’s most innovative handheld computer was something called a slide rule. As typewriters once symbolized the writer, slide rules symbolized the engineer. These analog ...