RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] beginner slide rule wanted

["Matthew Ross" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

> > The slide rule is good for making faster mathematicians. If 
> you are good
> > with a slide rule, you should be just as good with a calculator, but
> > most of the people that good with a slide rule these days are too
> > nostalgic about it to give up their slide ruling ways.
> 
> There are people using slide rules these days?  That's 
> surprising to me.
> I haven't even *seen* one in a long time and I'm in the academic world
> here.  A slide rule, or in-the-head calculation, might be 
> faster than a
> calculator, but neither will ever be as precise or definitive 
> -- you can't
> get more than about 3 significant digits from the slide rule.

You can, it's just a matter of what method you use. Given some of the results I've gotten from calculators and their shortcut tables, I don't know how signifigant we can consider their digits.

> > The reason they are intimidating is that they harken back 
> to the days
> > when you actually had to think about math, and nothing scares the
> > general public more than being forced to think.
> 
> Maybe, or maybe they're scared of having to waste time thinking about
> something that leads nowhere.  It's easy to see why they 
> would think the
> slide rule is a waste of time.  I think it could be, say, one 
> week of 9th
> grade math class, but then put it away and forget about it.

How many people do you know (outside of fellow faculty), that will think something through when they have the option not to?
If you want a good example, consider EULA's. How many people read them and consider what they imply?

If they were just seen as useless, people would more likely laugh. When I used mine in classes, I usually wound up with some poor fool asking me to help them with their homework afterwards. Sort of an exaggerated version of the reaction you get by answering math questions off the top of your head. Thanks to growing up with calculators, people don't remember that the human brain can calculate most of this stuff rather quickly with little effort. I was home schooled, and my mother didn't believe in calculators, which helped my math skills a lot.

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