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Enginerrrd | 26 days ago
It can reliably get me 2 sig figs, and a decent guess at a third. But… if I think about it for a minute, I can usually get that in my head anyway. Being able to setup a ratio is great though for unit conversions and things.
It’s also really good for answering that question when driving where you’re like, ok if I go 10mph faster how much sooner will I get there which is otherwise hard to do mentally.
Most of the benefit of using a slide rule in my experience comes not from using it, but from thinking LIKE you’re going to use a slide rule. You learn to freely use scientific notation with ease, and mental estimation to get the order of magnitude right.
And just my 2 cents, but circular slide rules are where it’s at.
sanjayjc|26 days ago
This is what I was trying to get at in my other comment [1]!
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46872141
iancmceachern|26 days ago
They're really cool
M3Henry|26 days ago