Before there were apps for tablets and smartphones, before mathematics education software was easily installed on personal computers, before electronic calculators entered professional practice and ...

Unless you are above a certain age, the only time you may have seen a slide rule (or a slip stick, as we sometimes called them) is in the movies. You might have missed it, but slide rules show up in ...

While some (math-phobics) still may relish the simple beauty and non-threatening functionality of the abacus, there are those who have made the transition to more challenging computing gadgets—many ...

Before the smartphone, the laptop and the pocket calculator, there was a powerful mechanical computer. Our new series, Tools of the Trade, begins... The Slide Rule: A Computing Device That Put A Man ...

Used by engineers for centuries, they were displaced by pocket calculators and all but forgotten until Mr. Shawlee created a subculture of obsessives and cornered the market. By Alex Traub For about ...

20141022_atc_the_slide_rule_a_computing_device_that_put_a_man_on_the_moon.mp3?orgId=1&topicId=1013&aggIds=359620445&d=489&p=2&story=356937347&t=progseg&e=358034983 ...

The protractor and the Bunsen burner. Playing the recorder in music class. Drawing arcs and circles with a compass in geometry. These tools of the education trade become part of our lives for a ...