Illustration from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, article CALCULATING MACHINES.
Original text: Slide rules are instruments for performing logarithmic calculations mechanically, and are extensively used, especially where only rough approximations are required. They are almost as old as logarithms themselves. Edmund Gunter drew a "logarithmic line" on his "Scales" as follows (fig. 4):—On a line AB lengths are set off to scale to represent the common logarithms of the numbers 1 2 3 ... 10, and the points thus obtained are marked with these numbers.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
This image comes from the 13th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica or earlier. The copyrights for that book have expired in the United States because the book was first published in the US with the publication occurring before January 1, 1929. As such, this image is in the public domain in the United States.
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net.
Illustration from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, article CALCULATING MACHINES. Original text: Slide rules are instruments for performing logarithmic calculations mechanically, and are extensively used, especially where only rough approximations are requi