My Husband Is Cheating On Me .......

[bednobs]

with Maths!
he's been coming to bed really late and when i ask him what he's been doing, he's been "playing" with his slide rule and log tables (that he bought on ebay the other day)
And, very sadly, i'm serious, he REALLY IS getting all excited over the slide rule.

I never even knew what one was (and to be honest still don't really know, but i presume it does something that calculators do now)

[DTCwordfan]

Differentiation and quadratics next........yeah, its when things get really hard.

[bednobs]

i was not zacs :) you said 40 seconds and i did it in about 30

[sherrardk]

I've done some googling, the rubbish compass thing was a 'divider' (apparently).

[FredPuli43]

Ah,second childhood, bednobs. The slide rule must have still been around in his youth. Ask him about a Wheatstone's bridge; bet they don't use those now ,either; and the ancient Chinese word for trigonometry Soh- Cah- Toa. As for log tables, well,they were pretty useful, once you got the hang of them.

Today's children know what an algorithm is (a what ? !) and are probably conversant with Boolean algebra, though they may not know that. And they have calculators,spoiled brats !

[society]

Today kids are allowed a calculator in exams!

[horseshoes]

Don't know much about algebra, don't know what a slide rule is for. But I do know that I love you and I know that if you loved me too what a wonderful world this will be. Sorry if someone has already answered; I was humming it for ages and the words have just arrived in my head!

[Hopkirk]

Well done Horseshoes - I had to Google it.

[maggiebee]

In a previous life I worked in the Work Study Dept. of a large jute firm. All the guys used slide rules and algebra to calculate machine speeds etc but afraid I remained totally ignorant.

[gness]

I have a beautiful cylindrical slide rule, like Canary's link, standing on my fireplace...it is fascinating.

[mallyh]

the slide rule song