A slide rule is a hand-held, manually operated calculating tool that allows the user to perform multiplication, division, exponentiation, extraction of roots, and various other algebraic operations. The slide rule makes use of a set of logarithmical...

Pocket calculators only came into common use in the 1970s. Digital computers first appeared in the 1940s, but were not in widespread use by the general public until the 1980s. Before pocket calculators, there were mechanical desktop calculators, but...

The slide rule is an analog device for performing mathematical computations. The first slide rule was created in 1630 by British mathematician William Oughtred (1574–1660). His device was based on the logarithmic scale created by British...

With the publication of logarithmic tables by John Napier (1550-1617) in 1614, astronomers and mathematicians were freed from much of the drudgery long associated with their professions. Some scholars realized that logarithms could be used in...

The slide rule (often nicknamed a "slipstick"[1]) is a mechanical analog computer, consisting of at least two finely divided scales (rules), most often a fixed outer pair and a movable inner one, with a sliding window called the cursor. The slide rule...

Before the calculator, before the computer, a simple tool that worked remains far from forgotten. (ProQuest Information and Learning: ... denotes obscured text omitted.) At Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., a permanent display on the first floor of the university's Potter...

Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Jerry Ross, along with about 200 other Purdue University alumni, have added their slide rules to a new exhibit at their alma mater that testifies to the past mathematical prowess of these slick computational devices. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

In labs at Johnson Space Center, away from the buzz about NASA's new spaceship and its new missions to the moon and Mars, a group of engineers are plodding away at another piece of the puzzle: spacesuits. Astronaut apparel has evolved over the decades from...

A handwritten card containing a Bible verse that Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin used during a lunar Holy Communion service is up for sale Thursday at a space-related auction.Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, read the verse privately during the 1969 mission...