Slide rule. History of invention and production

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Slide rule. History of invention and production

The history of technology, technology, objects around us

Directory / The history of technology, technology, objects around us

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Slide rule, Slide rule - an analog computing device that allows you to perform several mathematical operations, including multiplication and division of numbers, exponentiation (most often square and cube) and calculation of square and cube roots, calculation of logarithms, potentiation, calculation of trigonometric and hyperbolic functions and other operations.

Logarithmic ruler

Also, if you break the calculation into three steps, then using the slide rule, you can raise numbers to any real power and extract the root of any real power.

The principle of operation of the slide rule is based on the fact that the multiplication and division of numbers is replaced by the addition and subtraction of their logarithms, respectively. The first version of the ruler was developed by an English amateur mathematician William Oughtred in 1622.

William Oughtred, a graduate of Eton and King's College of Cambridge, pastor of Alsbury Church in Surrey, was a passionate mathematician and enjoyed teaching his favorite subject to numerous students from whom he did not charge any fees. “Small in stature, black-haired and black-eyed, with a penetrating look, he was constantly thinking about something, drawing some lines and diagrams in the dust,” one of the biographers described Otreda. “When he came across a particularly interesting mathematical problem, it happened that he I didn't sleep or eat until I found the solution."

In 1631, Oughtred published the main work of his life - the textbook Clavis Mathematicae ("Key of Mathematics"), which withstood several reprints for almost two centuries. Once, while discussing "mechanical calculations" with the help of Gunther's ruler with his student William Forster, Oughtred noted the imperfection of this method. In the meantime, the teacher demonstrated his invention - several concentric rings with logarithmic scales printed on them and two arrows. Forster was delighted and later wrote: "It surpassed any of the tools that were known to me. I wondered why he hid this most useful invention for many years ..."

Ootred himself said that he "simply bent and folded the Gunther scale into a ring", and besides, he was sure that "the real art [of mathematics] does not need tools ...", he considered their use permissible only after mastering this art. However, the student insisted on publication, and in 1632 Oughtred wrote (in Latin) and Forster translated into English the pamphlet Circles of Proportion and the Horizontal Instrument, which described the slide rule.

Logarithmic ruler
Circular slide rule (slide circle)

The authorship of this invention was disputed by another of his students - Richard Delamaine, who published in 1630 the book Grammology, or Mathematical Ring. Some argue that he simply stole the invention from a teacher, but it is possible that he arrived at a similar solution independently.

Another contender for authorship is the London mathematician Edmund Wingate, who proposed in 1626 to use two Gunther rulers sliding relative to each other. The instrument was brought to its present state by Robert Bissaker, who made the ruler straight (1654), John Robertson, who provided it with a slider (1775), and Amede Mannheim, who optimized the arrangement of the scales and the slider.

The slide rule has made complex calculations much easier for engineers and scientists. In the XNUMXth century, before the advent of calculators and computers, the slide rule was the same symbol of engineering professions as the phonendoscope is for doctors.

Author: S.Apresov

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