Ever wondered why we study logarithms? What's the practical use of it and why the way we look at significant numbers is different when we consider logarithms? The answer lie in the slide rule. This is something random that I read from Scientific American.


A slide rule

A slide rule is the calculator of the past. This is an advanced equipment to do multiplication, division and square roots etc with relative ease. It is possible because multiplication and division is simply addition and subtraction in logarithm and powers become simple multiplication while roots are division. A check on the log table would give us a rather accurate estimate.

Read more about the slide rule from wikipedia...

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