Re: [asa] mistake and slide rule

A good test of the accuracy of early calculators is to compute e^pi - pi.
It should come out as 20. If it comes out as 19.999... you probably have a
poor floating point handler in the calculator.... :-)

See the cartoon on my blogsite:

http://iainstrachan.blogspot.com/2008/05/geek-joke.html

Iain

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:28 PM, Alexanian, Moorad <alexanian@uncw.edu>
wrote:

> I still have my bamboo and ivory Post slide rule. I recall the trill when,
> with my new HP calculator made in the USA and which I still have, was able
> to calculate pi to the pi power. What a trill! At the University of Rhode
> Island, our engineering students used to carry their slide rules hanging on
> their belts like gun holsters. Those where the days!
>
>
> Moorad
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of George Cooper
> Sent: Mon 6/9/2008 10:02 AM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: RE: [asa] mistake and slide rule
>
>
>
> I witnessed the transition from slide rules to calculator in the early
> 70's.
> As a freshman, we were required to take a slid rule class. By the time I
> was a junior, the HP was already out but it was > $400 then, and the TI was
> coming out < $ 170 (no trig. Functions, however).
>
> Things came to head once more of us started using them during tests -- they
> were soon outlawed during tests in some classes. Our M.E. dep't head (since
> 1957), Clifford Simmang, challenged all of us in his thermo. class to a
> duel: his slide rule against our calculator. I thought he was joking, but
> he wasn't. After we cleaned his plow, he chuckled and confessed engineers
> were often overly attached to their slide rule. He then told of us a fire
> that had broken-out in an industrial plant where he worked. He said while
> they were rushing to the incident, a fellow engineer was late to the fire
> because he had elected to go back for his slide rule.
>
> "Coope"
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> Behalf Of George Murphy
> Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 7:02 AM
> To: Dave Wallace; ASA
> Subject: Re: [asa] mistake
>
> As a physicist I never had a problem with slide rules. Still, doing some
> arithmetic by hand - or in your head - is a way to stay sharp mentally. &
> trying to add on a slide rule doesn't work well.
>
> I still remember ~30 years ago, when calculators were becoming common & I
> was teaching general physics. I was talking a student through a problem &
> as we got to the conclusion I said rhetorically, "OK, now what's 6 times
> 3?"
>
> & she dutifully got out her calculator ...
>
> One other problem with calculators - & for that slide rules - is that
> students don't have much feel for what logarithms are. If you actually had
> to solve multiplication problems by looking up logs & adding them you have
> more of a sense for them that if you know them just as an abstract
> function.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/ <http://web.raex.com/%7Egmurphy/>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dave Wallace" <wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com>
> To: "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2008 9:53 PM
> Subject: Re: [asa] mistake
>
>
> > Lawrence Johnston wrote:
> >> Welcome back, you old curmudgeon. I am glad to hear the latest on
> energy
>
> >> supplies. Please stick around, we need you. God bless.
> >>
> >> Larry Johnston
> >> (a 90-year old curmudgeon)
> >>
> >> =========================================================== Lawrence
> >> H. Johnston home: 917 E. 8th st. professor of
> >> physics, emeritus Moscow, Id 83843 University of Idaho
> >> (208) 882-2765 Fellow of the American Physical Society
> >> http://www.uidaho.edu/~johnston/HOMEPA~1.HTM<http://www.uidaho.edu/%7Ejohnston/HOMEPA%7E1.HTM>==============
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> From: "Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net>
> >> To: <asa@calvin.edu>
> >> Subject: [asa] mistake
> >> Date sent: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 14:06:47 -0500
> >>
> >>
> >>> Sitting in Church today my thoughts wandered from the preacher and I
> >>> realised when I calculated the life time of a 200 year nuclear fuel
> >>> supply
> >>> if we use nuclear to replace oil, it isn't an 18 year supply. To
> replace
>
> >>> oil
> >>> with nuclear requires 6 x the number of nukes we have today. So, it
> >>> should
> >>> be a 33 year lifetime.
> >>>
> >>> Wondering why I did it, I think I stopped the math when I decided that
> >>> 6
> >>> goes into 200---18 and when it should be 3x6=18 subtract 18 from 20,
> >>> equals
> >>> 2, drop the zero, 6 goes into 20 3 times. ..So, my 3rd grade math is
> >>> lousy, and this is clearly an example where a mistake doesn't prove
> that
>
> >>> I
> >>> know nothing on any other topic, although I might be evidence that I
> >>> need to
> >>> return to the 3rd grade for a refresher course. No anger here.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> > I am of the same opinion as the other posts I have seen so far, we need a
> > dose of reality now and then. Winston Churchill was a crusty old
> > curmudgeon, but I find many of his writings worthwhile and I don't think
> > you even are in the same league as Winston in terms of crustiness.
> >
> > Don't feel too bad as lots of us have the same kind of problem with
> > arithmetic, sometimes to check myself I do rough calcs two ways and
> > compare the answer to see if the order of magniture is even right.
> >
> > By the way I barely finished grade 1 to 4 arithmetic and my teacher
> > (singular) told my parents I was close to unteachable and would not
> finish
>
> > high school. Then in grade 5 with a different teacher, I started getting
> > close to perfect scores as we started doing problems and not solving
> > boring arithmetic examples over and over. Sure people should know basic
> > arithmetic and not rely on calculators for everything as some children
> > coming out of our schools here seem to. But one can always look in the
> > back of the book for 11 times 12 or quickly figure it out mentally by
> > multiplying 10 times 12 and adding 12 but that does not work in a test
> > that is a fast drill of the tables. On another tack, I still wish that
> > I had my old K&E log log slide rule as it was a real good way to do back
> > of the envelope calcs, especially proportions and of course it did not
> > produce answers good to 64 bit, ie double precision floating point
> > (sarcasm). Somehow precise computer answers carry way too much weight.
> I
>
> > know, I know, only dumb engineers use slide rules, at least that was what
> > the physics and math majors told us when I went to University of
> Waterloo.
> >
> > Dave W 68 this year and counting for a while yet I hope
> >
> >
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>
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