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I miss epanastatis, so I have a slide rule
Jul. 3rd, 2004 03:07 amDamn you, epana, for taking away your LJ presence! I still worry you left the old LJ account because you were mad at me. I need you to call my shit when it's lame.
Here's lame, for example: I brought back one of my dad's old slide rules. I'm fascinated by them. Why is log pi so close to 0.5? I could let that koan bash my skull for days. Oh wait, it has...
I had to calibrate it because the cross bars had slipped out of alignment. I'll admit this isn't the old K&E he had, which was a much nicer slide rule but has some severe water damage to its slide pane. Still, it lets me see the relationships of numbers and get into math fascination again. I'm tempted to find a cylindrical slide rule, the kind with the Vernier scale that lets you determine extra significant digits by cross-checking. Perhaps someone has developed a web app to emulate that.
I think teaching kids to use slide rules and other older calculation tools would do wonders for America's educational weakness. Kids could put the numbers and their relationships into their hands and eyes. The ideas would embed so much more deeply. They'd have the mechanics of the numbers and the sense of rollover.
I must be tired. I'm rambling about slide rules. Night night.
Here's lame, for example: I brought back one of my dad's old slide rules. I'm fascinated by them. Why is log pi so close to 0.5? I could let that koan bash my skull for days. Oh wait, it has...
I had to calibrate it because the cross bars had slipped out of alignment. I'll admit this isn't the old K&E he had, which was a much nicer slide rule but has some severe water damage to its slide pane. Still, it lets me see the relationships of numbers and get into math fascination again. I'm tempted to find a cylindrical slide rule, the kind with the Vernier scale that lets you determine extra significant digits by cross-checking. Perhaps someone has developed a web app to emulate that.
I think teaching kids to use slide rules and other older calculation tools would do wonders for America's educational weakness. Kids could put the numbers and their relationships into their hands and eyes. The ideas would embed so much more deeply. They'd have the mechanics of the numbers and the sense of rollover.
I must be tired. I'm rambling about slide rules. Night night.
