Before the smartphone, the laptop and the pocket calculator, there was a powerful mechanical computer. Our new series, Tools of the Trade, begins with a look at the slide rule.

My high school physics teacher spent a week teaching students how to use a slide rule. I asked him, "why can't we just use calculators?" At the time a slide rule was about $2, and a calculator was ...

Decades have passed since the pocket calculator relegated the trusty slide rule to near obscurity. Now, an exhibit celebrates the lengthy history of the device, featuring the slide rules of ...

We do not teach students to use a slide rule in a world of calculators. With clear ethical guidelines still evolving, the task before HEIs is daunting but cannot be shirked. Returning to handwritten ...

August 30, 2004 Astronauts, Purdue alumni add their contributions to new slide-rule exhibit WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Jerry Ross, along with about 200 other Purdue ...

Around the periphery of the Navitimer is a rotating bezel that contains a functional circular slide rule - a calculation tool that existed in a pre-electronic calculator world.

My thoughts go back 50 years to junior high geometry. We were required to buy a slide rule and instructed in its use. Later, my parents bought me one of the first handheld calculators as a high ...

The new HP-35, the world’s first handheld scientific calculator, virtually made the engineering slide rule obsolete. It was HP’s first product to contain both integrated circuits and LEDs.

MIT's Debbie Douglas says that even though the slide rule isn't as precise as a calculator, students can understand the idea of what it's doing. "It really makes one engaged with the process." Jim Hus ...