E-Book Overview
The slide rule, with its many variations, has been vital to mathematics and engineering since its invention in the 17th century. Interest in this field has grown dramatically and collectors can still find much material at affordable prices. Unfortunately there has been little information available except for manufacturers manuals and catalogs, making this reprint of Cajori's classic particularly valuable. Also included with this reprint of the 1910 edition is Cajori's extensive article On the History of Gunter's Scale and the Slide Rule during the 17th Century, published by the University of California in 1920, which sets forth his subsequent findings. There is also a helpful explanatory introduction by Dr. Robert K. Otnes, editor of the Journal of the Oughtred Society. 178 pages. Illustrated. 61/8" x 91/4". Hard cover.
E-Book Content
HISTORY OF THE LOGARITHMIC SLIDE RULE
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Editor’s Foreward This version of the Cajori’s important book “The Slide Rule” was photocopied from the one in the library of Whipple Museum of the History of Science at Cambridge University. The copy used had previously been owned by L. H. Cooke, a physics professor at the University (as is the case with many books in the Whipple Collection). Although Cooke did not himself win a Nobel Prize he did work with Owen Richardson who won the physics prize in 1929 and who cited the work he had done with Cook on Thermionic Valves in his formal lecture. This edition was published in 1909. The book was converted to text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Whilst this method can produce a high degree of accuracy there are inevitably some mistakes. I have tried to correct as many as possible but do not guarantee that no mistakes remain. This task was made particularly difficult by the fact that some references are to books in French, German and other languages – even Russian - and the origin