This just in from an eloquent friend of mine who, as many of us here I
fear, has fond memories of the famous "slip stick"...
Jack also shares with me, a love of seeking answers to things we forget
over time, by returning to "first principles".
With that, I give to you a man who can say it better than I ever will.
- Steve
And a reference for Guerin who knows all about being angry at the boat,
here we have building a raft once already at sea.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Deriving and driving
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2013 17:36:36 -0700
From: Jack K. Horner <[email protected]>
To: Jack Horner <[email protected]>
I recently purchased a used Pickett Microline 120 slide rule on eBay, the
only thing I've ever acquired that way. With just 9 scales, it's nothing
exotic. In its day, it was good enough to get one through the average EE
exam.
It came with no documentation.
I had forgotten what all but the C and D scales did.
There appears to be free documentation on the web, but why read when you can
derive?
Thanks to some take-no-prisoners math teachers in my youth, I still recall
the values of various logarithms and trig functions. Within 15 minutes and
a couple of shots of the Blood of the Sacred Agave, I was therefore able to
induce the meanings of other 7 scales. The rest of the story is remembering
that a conventional "slipstick" maps real numbers, considered as lengths,
into their logarithms.
I think I never had a truly visceral grasp of the principle of a slide rule
until my memory became worth less than ... well ... you know ... whatever.
Fortunately, as my command of many particulars sank into the swamp, I
learned how to derive at least some of what I needed to know from first
principles.
Those who no longer command first principles have, as Russell said, the
task of the philosopher, who must build his/her raft at sea.
Jack K. Horner
P.O. Box 266
Los Alamos, NM 87544
Voice: 505-455-0381
Fax: 505-455-0382
email: [email protected]
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