One under-appreciated aspect of a slide rule, is for instantly seeing fraction reductions at a glance. For example, lets say I want to find out what aspect ratio a given screen resolution is at. I can set that resolution as a ratio on the slide rule's C/D scales (i.e., 1680x1050 becomes 1.68 one C, lined up with 1.05 on D. Then I glance over, and see immediately that is 16 x 10 resolution.) If the value goes off the scales, look up to the CF/DF scales.
This is also great when you have a bunch of resistors and capacitors, and you need to build a circuit where the two are at a particular ratio. Set the ratio you want, then you can take whatever resistor you have, and see if you have a cap that is "close enough" to what you need.
Also ratio multiplications, e.g. when increasing the amounts of ingredients in recipes to match a particular amount of something.
So if the primary ingredient is chevre cheese, the recipe calls for 180 grams, but you can only buy it in 250 gram packages, you can set the slide rule to "180 over 250" and then just mechanically read off the proportionally correct amounts of all other ingredients.
Slide rules are indispensable in the kitchen to me and I'm surprised they're not part of standard kitchen equipment like e.g. scales.
Edit: Similarly, if the recipe is expressing ingredients in US units and you would want to know the international amounts, you can set the slide rule to the conversion ratio and again, mechanically read off the correct amounts as you go.
This is one advantage of the customary (English language non-metric) units: the common ones are full of rational factors (1/2, 2/3 etc) — it’s pretty easy to adjust a recipe to the number of people.
Seems to me that you could place tickmarks or colored dots or something, at the E12 values along one scale (where resistors are usually binned) and the E6 values along the other scale (caps are usually sold in E6), and then it'd be an even quicker glance to see where two line up.
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One under-appreciated aspect of a slide rule, is for instantly seeing fraction reductions at a glance. For example, lets say I want to find out what aspect ratio a given screen resolution is at. I can set that resolution as a ratio on the slide rule's C/D scales (i.e., 1680x1050 becomes 1.68 one C, lined up with 1.05 on D. Then I glance over, and see immediately that is 16 x 10 resolution.) If the value goes off the scales, look up to the CF/DF scales.
This is also great when you have a bunch of resistors and capacitors, and you need to build a circuit where the two are at a particular ratio. Set the ratio you want, then you can take whatever resistor you have, and see if you have a cap that is "close enough" to what you need.
Also ratio multiplications, e.g. when increasing the amounts of ingredients in recipes to match a particular amount of something.
So if the primary ingredient is chevre cheese, the recipe calls for 180 grams, but you can only buy it in 250 gram packages, you can set the slide rule to "180 over 250" and then just mechanically read off the proportionally correct amounts of all other ingredients.
Slide rules are indispensable in the kitchen to me and I'm surprised they're not part of standard kitchen equipment like e.g. scales.
Edit: Similarly, if the recipe is expressing ingredients in US units and you would want to know the international amounts, you can set the slide rule to the conversion ratio and again, mechanically read off the correct amounts as you go.
This is one advantage of the customary (English language non-metric) units: the common ones are full of rational factors (1/2, 2/3 etc) — it’s pretty easy to adjust a recipe to the number of people.
Seems to me that you could place tickmarks or colored dots or something, at the E12 values along one scale (where resistors are usually binned) and the E6 values along the other scale (caps are usually sold in E6), and then it'd be an even quicker glance to see where two line up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_series_of_preferred_numbers
Figuring out that 1680/1050 ≈ 16/10 might not be the best example ;)
Yes, I was trying to think of something real quick, so I picked the resolution of my (older) monitor at work because it was simple. You caught me!
Yes! This is the sort of thing my Dad used them for (see my other comment here for the context)