Calculation by measuring: 350 years of slide rule (Q1264578)

The author began collecting slide rules some years before this article. After a synopsis of the history from the seventeenth century (John Napier, Edmund Gunter, William Oughtred), the paper presents a discussion of the influence of the desire for greater accuracy. He cites a study of 1966 by Karl Strubecker giving a figure of 0.5 per cent. He then gives examples of the various shapes and types of scales invented by Amédée Mannheim, Max Rietz, and Alwin Walther. The article concludes with several paragraphs indicating the dominant countries and manufacturers; before the nineteenth century slide rules were hardly known outside of England. Brief though this account is, the paucity of historical work on this topic makes it valuable.