History of the Logarithmic Slide Rule and Allied Instruments

Florian Cajori

• Publisher: Astragal Press
• Year: 1994
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• eBook ISBN:
  9781493054077
• Subtopic: Technology & Engineering Research & Skills
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The slide rule, with its many variations, has been vital to mathematics and engineering since its invention in the 17th century. Interest in this field has grown dramatically and collectors can still find much material at affordable prices. Unfortunately there has been little information available except for manufacturers manuals and catalogs, making this reprint of Cajori's classic particularly valuable. Also included with this reprint of the 1910 edition is Cajori's extensive article On the History of Gunter's Scale and the Slide Rule during the 17th Century, published by the University of California in 1920, which sets forth his subsequent findings. There is also a helpful explanatory introduction by Dr. Robert K. Otnes, editor of the Journal of the Oughtred Society

Table of contents

• Preface
• The Invention of Logarithms and of the Logarithmic Line of Numbers
• Gunter’s Scale and the Slide Rule often Confounded
• Conflicting Statements on the Invention of the Slide Rule
• Disentanglement of the Main Facts
• Development during the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century
• Development in England during the Eighteenth Century
• Development in Germany during the Eighteenth Century
• Development in France during the Eighteenth Century
• Development in England during the Nineteenth Century (First Half)
• Development in Germany and Austria during the Nineteenth Century (First Half)
• Development in France during the Nineteenth Century (First Half)
• Development in the United States during the Nineteenth Century
• Development during Recent Times
• Slide Rules Designed and Used since 1800
• Bibliography of the Slide Rule