The Fascinating Story of the Slide Rule, the Tool That Put Men on the Moon Without a Battery

Comments · 1K

• RA

  @randyshoquist7726 · 1 month ago (edited)

  One of my first college engineering classes in 1972 was slide rule use. The instructor checked our work with a four function calculator he built from a kit in the back of Popular Electronics magazine. My first calculator was a used HP35 that I bought from an engineer when he upgraded to an HP45. My HP35 no longer works, but all my slide rules do.

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• GO

  @goldgeologist5320 · 1 month ago

  Still have my college and high school slide rules.

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• CA

  @carpenterabc · 1 month ago

  After my dad retired, he gave me his slide rule and showed me how to use it. In high school i was so proud to show it off...and i quickly found out that i was a nerd deep inside...!

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• BE

  @BernardBrennan-wt4bk · 1 month ago

  I have both calculators ad slide rules.  My slide rule makes me proud to be an engineer.

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• MI

  @michaelzampini5388 · 1 month ago

  I had a younger cousin that was studying engineering. He used a slide ruler extensively.<br>Years later when I was studying engineering, the slide rulers were no where to be seen.<br>During our graduation ceremony our speaker was an old retired engineer.<br>He walked up to the podium, pulled out his old slide ruler, held it high, and reminded us that men went to the moon because of slide rulers.<br>😊❤

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• TH

  @threynolds2 · 1 month ago

  The AI that produced this video could benefit from the use of a slide rule.

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• DA

  @davidthompson6636 · 1 month ago

  A slide rule and mastering the Periodic Table: you will rule the world

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• OT

  @ottostasi8226 · 1 month ago

  I was a diesel engine tester at Allis- Chalmers from 1971-1975 and used a slide rule to calculate the engines HP. All the engine testers were required to use them . I was 20 yrs old then , I&apos;m 74 now , I feel like those times were much better than now a days .

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• JA

  @jadenephrite · 1 month ago (edited)

  For those who do not know, in 1814, English physician Peter Mark Roget invented the log-log scale slide rule which could raise a number to an exponential power or in reverse find the root of a number. He became a fellow of the renowned Royal Society in London in 1815. He later published Roget&apos;s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases in 1852.

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• SR

  @srquint · 1 month ago

  I learned to use a slide rule my first term in engineering - 1965. When finishing a calculation we were taught to ask ourselves the question central to problem solving: &quot;Does my answer make sense&quot;, which came directly from tracking the magnitude of the answer mentally as the calculation progressed. I had put my slide ruler away when I started graduate school, and &nbsp;taught engineering a decade later. My students did their calculations, first with calculators and later by entering the parameters of the problems into algorithms on their computers. They put numbers in and reported the output as the solution. They could not answer the central question to engineering problem - they could grasp not concept of an expected magnitude - no &quot;feel&quot; for the correctness of the answer. &nbsp;What ever the algorithm spit out of the computer was presumed correct (and often was not).

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• DA

  @davidvansickle5850 · 1 month ago

  The one advantage of the slide ruler over the calculator, is the slide ruler forces you on where to place the decimal.

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• JO

  @joseauger1353 · 1 month ago

  I still use it once in a while to maintain the skill of using it .

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