The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Daily entries from the 17th century London diary

Slide rule

6 Annotations

dirk   Link to this

Slide rule

“Based on John Napier’s principle of the logarithm, it came into use after Edmund Gunter created a logarithmic scale in 1620. Gunter’s rule consisted of a straight line on which numbers were spaced at intervals proportional to their common logarithms. Using this scale, William Oughtred and Edmund Wingate developed independently (c.1630) the first slide rules.”

From:
http://www.answers.com/topic/slide-rule

Also have a look at:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/sliderul.htm

Images (Terry F):
http://www.hpmuseum.org/guntercl.jpg
http://www.hpmuseum.org/gunterb2.jpg

See also the annotations to the diary entry for 25 November 1662:
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/11/25/

JWB   Link to this

Timber scale from the Mary Rose:
Gresham College | Lecture Archive
HISTORY FROM BELOW: MATHEMATICS, INSTRUMENTS AND ARCHAEOLOGY

Dr Stephen Johnston
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=39&Ev...

Ed   Link to this

A slide rule you can actually use

http://www.syssrc.com/html/museum/html/sims/jav...

TerryF   Link to this

A slide-rule's initial value for Pepys is indicated by this descriptive title:

Everard, Thomas. "Stereometry, Or, The Art of Gauging Made easie by the Help of a New Sliding-Rule Which Shews the Area's of Circles in Gallons and Barrels and the Square and Cube-Root of any Number under 100,000 by inspection; and also Resolves Many other Arithmetical Problems Without Pen or Compasses: With an Appendix of Conick Sections, in Which the Nature and Original of Several Solids (frequently mentioned in Books of Gauging) is Explained, and their Magnitudes Compared." London: Peacock, 1689.
http://math.arizona.edu/~models/bibliography.html

in Aqua scripto   Link to this

L&M says that Pepys designed his own slide-rule for the measure of Timbers and it be made by Brown [7 Aug '63]

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