Part of the problem with chosing a field today may be how our
economy has turned.  With the offshoring and outsourcing of high-
tech jobs, the future isn't encouraging for a young person to chose
a high-tech career.

The forcasts of the jobs of the future are rather dismal.  The US
has turned itself into a service oriented society.  Flipping burgers
and big box retail seem to be the wave of the future.  Few products
are manufactured in the US any longer, and the list is likely
growing slimmer for the products that are created and invented
here.

The few jobs on the forcast that are high skill and high demand are
in the medical field.  While I hold the highest respect for those in
the medical field, having seen my mother in the hospital several
times over the past few months, I see it takes a very special person
to dedicate themselves to this sort of work.

I spent nearly six months looking for employment as an electronics
technician after a layoff. My home in Salt Lake City was once ranked
close to Silicon Valley as a technology hotbed.  Times have
certainly changed.

While I'm sure there will always be a demand for scientists and
engineers, the global economy and lightning speed transfer of work
and data over the Internet has diminished the demand that these
people be local or even within the same country.  Countries such as
India and perhaps China as well have equally or perhaps even better
qualified and educated people willing to work for a fraction of
their US counterparts.  With company profits having such importance
with shareholders, the offshoring and outsourcing will likely get
worse.

So our kids can train to be an auto mechanic, which is in itself
pretty high tech nowadays, enter the medical field, or be miserable
in a low-wage job with little future in a big box store. (Insuranse
and other benefits is a whole different topic, and many jobs now
have no such offerings.)

20 Years ago, I thought I had the world by the tail as an electronic
tech, and was practically able to state my demands and desires to
any employer. Back then, a new job was just across the street.
Today, my newly acquired job is very dear to me, as I understand I
was one of many interviewed.  They stated the demands, and I happily
agreed.

Times have certainly changed.  The field is ripe with qualified
people, but the job pickings are slim.

Joe


--- In sliderule@yahoogroups.com, "gary" <gflom@p...> wrote:
> Duane,
>   This is a very worrisome problem, if the statistics they list
are accurate. The only way to technologically advance is to have
creative minds in the sciences. I wonder what the upshot will be 50 -
  100 years from now . Does anyone know what our younger generations
*are* opting to go into? I don't know the stats myself.
>
>     Gary Flom
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Duane Croft
>   To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
>   Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 6:12 PM
>   Subject: SR OT: Declining Science Education
>
>
>   Hi All,
>
>   There's an interesting, if somewhat biased, article on CNN at
>
>
http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/05/06/science.education.ap/index.ht
ml
>
>   It bemoans the fact that the "United States could lose its
prominence in
>   the fields of science and technology."  As I said, it's somewhat
biased
>   - I'm not at all sure that the US has "prominence in the fields
of
>   science and technology," but I didn't write the article.
>
>   The interesting part, to my mind, is a statement later in the
article:
>   "Many of those who entered the expanding science and engineering
work
>   force in the 1960s and 1970s (the baby boom generation) are
expected to
>   retire in the next 20 years, and their children are not choosing
careers
>   in science and engineering in the same numbers as their
parents."  How
>   fascinating - back when people had to figure things out by hand
via
>   slide rule or log tables or paper and pencil (and therefore
actually
>   knew how things worked); people choose to go into science and
>   engineering.  Now, when you can find the answer to any problem
you want
>   by asking a button box and getting the answer by "magic" (i.e. -
most
>   people don't have a clue how the answer was arrived at), not as
many
>   people are going into science and engineering for their career.
Hmmm,
>   could there be a connection?
>
>   <<Grin>>
>
>   Despairingly yours,
>   Duane
>
>
>   [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
>   Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>     a.. To visit your group on the web, go to:
>     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sliderule/
>
>     b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>     sliderule-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>     c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms
of Service.
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I have had the fortune or mis-fortune to have worked in the medical and IT
field for over 20 years each - parallel careers. The medical field requires
different skills, which in retrospect should be obvious.  Many of the
practicing medical professionals are bored, because they do the samething
over and over again -without having to think. The protocols and policies are
laid out in advance - no creativing thinking is encouraged.  In the IT
field, your career is dead if you are not creative and do not keep up with
your training. Many of the doctors expressed a strong interest to get into
the IT field.  I know of one doctor who has done just that - left a 20 year
medical career to persue a new career in computers and mathematics.

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Bento [mailto:joseph@...]
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 11:59 PM
To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: SR OT: Declining Science Education


Part of the problem with chosing a field today may be how our
economy has turned.  With the offshoring and outsourcing of high-
tech jobs, the future isn't encouraging for a young person to chose
a high-tech career.

The forcasts of the jobs of the future are rather dismal.  The US
has turned itself into a service oriented society.  Flipping burgers
and big box retail seem to be the wave of the future.  Few products
are manufactured in the US any longer, and the list is likely
growing slimmer for the products that are created and invented
here.

The few jobs on the forcast that are high skill and high demand are
in the medical field.  While I hold the highest respect for those in
the medical field, having seen my mother in the hospital several
times over the past few months, I see it takes a very special person
to dedicate themselves to this sort of work.

I spent nearly six months looking for employment as an electronics
technician after a layoff. My home in Salt Lake City was once ranked
close to Silicon Valley as a technology hotbed.  Times have
certainly changed.

While I'm sure there will always be a demand for scientists and
engineers, the global economy and lightning speed transfer of work
and data over the Internet has diminished the demand that these
people be local or even within the same country.  Countries such as
India and perhaps China as well have equally or perhaps even better
qualified and educated people willing to work for a fraction of
their US counterparts.  With company profits having such importance
with shareholders, the offshoring and outsourcing will likely get
worse.

So our kids can train to be an auto mechanic, which is in itself
pretty high tech nowadays, enter the medical field, or be miserable
in a low-wage job with little future in a big box store. (Insuranse
and other benefits is a whole different topic, and many jobs now
have no such offerings.)

20 Years ago, I thought I had the world by the tail as an electronic
tech, and was practically able to state my demands and desires to
any employer. Back then, a new job was just across the street.
Today, my newly acquired job is very dear to me, as I understand I
was one of many interviewed.  They stated the demands, and I happily
agreed.

Times have certainly changed.  The field is ripe with qualified
people, but the job pickings are slim.

Joe


--- In sliderule@yahoogroups.com, "gary" <gflom@p...> wrote:
> Duane,
>   This is a very worrisome problem, if the statistics they list
are accurate. The only way to technologically advance is to have
creative minds in the sciences. I wonder what the upshot will be 50 -
  100 years from now . Does anyone know what our younger generations
*are* opting to go into? I don't know the stats myself.
>
>     Gary Flom
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Duane Croft
>   To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
>   Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 6:12 PM
>   Subject: SR OT: Declining Science Education
>
>
>   Hi All,
>
>   There's an interesting, if somewhat biased, article on CNN at
>
>
http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/05/06/science.education.ap/index.ht
ml
>
>   It bemoans the fact that the "United States could lose its
prominence in
>   the fields of science and technology."  As I said, it's somewhat
biased
>   - I'm not at all sure that the US has "prominence in the fields
of
>   science and technology," but I didn't write the article.
>
>   The interesting part, to my mind, is a statement later in the
article:
>   "Many of those who entered the expanding science and engineering
work
>   force in the 1960s and 1970s (the baby boom generation) are
expected to
>   retire in the next 20 years, and their children are not choosing
careers
>   in science and engineering in the same numbers as their
parents."  How
>   fascinating - back when people had to figure things out by hand
via
>   slide rule or log tables or paper and pencil (and therefore
actually
>   knew how things worked); people choose to go into science and
>   engineering.  Now, when you can find the answer to any problem
you want
>   by asking a button box and getting the answer by "magic" (i.e. -
most
>   people don't have a clue how the answer was arrived at), not as
many
>   people are going into science and engineering for their career.
Hmmm,
>   could there be a connection?
>
>   <<Grin>>
>
>   Despairingly yours,
>   Duane
>
>
>   [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
>   Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>     a.. To visit your group on the web, go to:
>     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sliderule/
>
>     b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>     sliderule-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>     c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms
of Service.
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Yahoo! Groups Links

There is an unpleasant side effect to the situation that Chris has
remarked on.  The emphasis at the university is totally on
research.  Under grads are regarded as subhumans.  Grad students are
regarded as slave labor.  This is a negative atmosphere for the poor
undergrad.  Classes are by rote, with less room for creative thought
than in high school and there was damn little there.  There is no
flexibility.  As a non-traditional student I was obliged to sit
through courses that were elementary to me, do elementary lab
excercises where I knew far more about the subject than the teaching
assistant, etc., ad nauseum.  Classes are scheduled for the
convienience of the staff, not the students. (Who are after all
the "customers".)  In short, I found an experience that should have
been a lot of fun to be a total drag.

Meanwhile, in industry, getting a job is a credentials game.  What
you actally know has no bearing on getting the job.

While in college I was turned down for a lab assistant job in an
area where I had years of practical experience simply because I was
an undergrad.  This was fabricating experimental semiconductors.
The grad student they hired might even have as much theoretical
knowledge as I do, but there are practical points, like wondering
why you can't pump a vacuum chamber down instead of knowing from
experience there is a finger print boiling away inside.

Enough of a rant.







--- In sliderule@yahoogroups.com, "Chris Bourne" <cfpb@l...> wrote:
> I think status has more to do with it than slide rules :)
>
> New disciplines such as computer programming have many famous
million- and
> billionaires to represent them. Law - I believe that's another
flourishing
> disclipline - can also boast many prominently wealthy 'stars'. But
when you
> turn to engineering, what do you see? Once great companies like
General
> Electric shed them by the bucket load. Nobody knows the names of
the great
> engineers of our times, unlike the great engineers of the past.
>
> There is, incidentally, a particular curb on technology advances
in the USA
> which is more obvious when, as I do, you work for an R&D company
doing basic
> science. There is an established orthodoxy that research gets done
at
> universities, with the assistance of federal cash when it finds a
real life
> application. Anybody who has done the rounds of DARPA funding will
know
> exactly how it works.
>
> But for the last 20 years or so, there's been a law in force that
says the
> US Gov't gets to use your invention without paying you a penny, if
just one
> cent of federal money was spent on developing it. Unless you are
> well-connected to the establishment you can be sucked dry and
dumped without
> compunction. Hence my company, while many of the staff are
Americans, is not
> based in the USA, does not take US Gov't money (in spite of
several attempts
> to persuade us to do so, admitting that it will then deprive us of
maybe
> 85-90% of the revenues we'd get from defense applications), and
will insist
> that wherever possible licensees operate through third-party non-US
> companies.
>
> In my experience most research funded by the Feds is being done
slowly, at
> huge expense, and dictated by largely political (small p, not
party) battles
> about which ideas are fashionable at the time.
>
> To get research flourishing you have to encourage private
competition again,
> ensure inventors can get proper rewards for their work, and direct
the tax
> dollars towards tax breaks for R&D instead of funneling them into
expensive
> state-directed research programs which act as cash cows for the
elderly
> "gatekeepers" of academia who decide the official line of what is
worth
> doing.
>
> Once it becomes fun, cool and lucrative again, you'll have no
difficulty
> persuading kids to major in science.
>
> Chris Bourne, ranting for a change...
> London UK
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Duane Croft" <dcroft@o...>
> To: <sliderule@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 11:12 PM
> Subject: SR OT: Declining Science Education
>
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > There's an interesting, if somewhat biased, article on CNN at
> >
> >
http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/05/06/science.education.ap/index.ht
ml
> >
> > It bemoans the fact that the "United States could lose its
prominence in
> > the fields of science and technology."  As I said, it's somewhat
biased
> > - I'm not at all sure that the US has "prominence in the fields
of
> > science and technology," but I didn't write the article.
> >
> > The interesting part, to my mind, is a statement later in the
article:
> > "Many of those who entered the expanding science and engineering
work
> > force in the 1960s and 1970s (the baby boom generation) are
expected to
> > retire in the next 20 years, and their children are not choosing
careers
> > in science and engineering in the same numbers as their
parents."  How
> > fascinating - back when people had to figure things out by hand
via
> > slide rule or log tables or paper and pencil (and therefore
actually
> > knew how things worked); people choose to go into science and
> > engineering.  Now, when you can find the answer to any problem
you want
> > by asking a button box and getting the answer by "magic" (i.e. -
most
> > people don't have a clue how the answer was arrived at), not as
many
> > people are going into science and engineering for their career.
Hmmm,
> > could there be a connection?
> >
> > <<Grin>>
> >
> > Despairingly yours,
> > Duane
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >

-

Honestly, I can't understand how one can "find the answer...by asking a
button box..."

Don't you have to have to have exactly the same background knowledge of
trigs, logs, powers, roots and whatever to operate a sci-calc, as you would
have to operate a slide rule? Really?

Without that knowledge, a calculator with all those keys would look sort of
meaningless.

And I don't think that a calculator can give you an answer "by magic".

The calculator can't give you any short cuts in the understanding of math,
only more convenient solutions and more accurate answers, if those are
desirable...

Only my humble opinion :-)
John Mosand


   <snip>
   Now, when you can find the answer to any problem you want
   by asking a button box and getting the answer by "magic" (i.e. - most
   people don't have a clue how the answer was arrived at), not as many
   people are going into science and engineering for their career.  Hmmm,
   could there be a connection?
   <snip>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In sliderule@yahoogroups.com, "Joe Bento" <joseph@k...> wrote:
> Countries such as India and perhaps China as well have equally
> or perhaps even better qualified and educated people willing
> to work for a fraction of their US counterparts.

Sorry, I have to comment from lots of personal experience:

1) Most Indian/etc offshore programmers have very little, if any,
real world experience.  They are in no way as useful as someone local
with years/decades in the field.

2) They might be cheaper on paper than the equivalent new USA college
graduate, but offshore costs far more in getting a decent product out
the door.

3) Don't expect innovative work from India.  I believe it's a
holdover from British rule, that junior programmers are afraid to
change anything a senior has ever done.

The upshot is that it costs more to do offshore programming in most
cases, because you still need someone here to hold their hand, give
feedback, and often simply redo the whole thing in a fraction of the
time that offshoring took.  Not to mention the formidable timezone,
language, and "whiteboarding" problems that you don't have with local
help.

I work for a huge company that keeps trying offshore work.  In every
case so far, we've had to redo their work, and then are asked to send
it back so they could take credit for it... so the VP who thought it
was a good idea could look good.  Insanity.

SR part:  When I show a sliderule to offshore people, they NEVER seem
to know what it is.  At least USA engineers can recognize one :-)

Kevin

Hi John,

I'm afraid I can't agree with you on this one.  You state:

"Don't you have to have to have exactly the same background knowledge of
trigs, logs, powers, roots and whatever to operate a sci-calc, as you
would
have to operate a slide rule? Really?"

My answer to your question is NO.  Example problem:  What's the sine of
89.95 degrees?  To find the answer with a calculator, all I need is a
vague understanding of trig - just that there's some function called
"sine" that maybe I heard a teacher talk about in class once - and a
button box to give me the answer.  Now, to find it on a slide rule, I
need a somewhat more detailed knowledge of trig, i.e. that the sine of
89.95 degrees is the same as the cosine of 0.05, then I need to know the
relationship between degrees and radians (Pi radians = 180 degrees) in
order to convert 0.05 degrees to .000873 radians, then I need a little
calculus so that I know that the cosine of x radians is 1 - (x^2)/2! +
(x^4)/4! -..  Only then can I plug and chug on my slide rule - using the
first two terms of that expansion and (in 2 slide movements and 1 cursor
movements on any slide rule with A/B, C/D scales) find and answer of
0.999999619.

Slide rules are harder to use.  There are advantages to this.  You only
build muscles by digging ditches with a shovel, not by using a
bulldozer.

Duane


-----Original Message-----
From: John Mosand [mailto:jomosand@...]
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 3:26 PM
To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
Subject: SV: SR OT: Declining Science Education

-

Honestly, I can't understand how one can "find the answer...by asking a
button box..."

Don't you have to have to have exactly the same background knowledge of
trigs, logs, powers, roots and whatever to operate a sci-calc, as you
would
have to operate a slide rule? Really?

Without that knowledge, a calculator with all those keys would look sort
of
meaningless.

And I don't think that a calculator can give you an answer "by magic".

The calculator can't give you any short cuts in the understanding of
math,
only more convenient solutions and more accurate answers, if those are
desirable...

Only my humble opinion :-)
John Mosand


   <snip>
   Now, when you can find the answer to any problem you want
   by asking a button box and getting the answer by "magic" (i.e. - most
   people don't have a clue how the answer was arrived at), not as many
   people are going into science and engineering for their career.  Hmmm,
   could there be a connection?
   <snip>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





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ompanion.yahoo.com> click here


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<http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>  Service.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Item number:

2243262252 "1957 Good Year Aircraft Ad: Rapier Slide Rule Sheath"

(Use ebay search, put in the number above.)

Thought someone might be interested.   I collect flight computer
ads.  Do others here collect "regular" sliderule ads?

Kevin

Duane -

I think you are wrong about this. What we used to do was look it up in our
book of tables. It didn't require any more or less knowledge than using a
calculator. The slide rule tells you that the answer is "one, near as
dammit" and all the rest of the stuff about calculus is irrelevant to people
who don't require 7 significant figures. The small number of people who do
need that sort of precision also tend to know what they are doing.

Basically, if a person knows that the answer to her real life problem is the
sine of 89.95 deg. then she already knows what a sine is or she wouldn't
formulate the problem in that way. What counts is the ability to frame the
problem in a way that can produce a solution.

In education, what is really really important is that kids of four and five
learn to count, and perform addition and subtraction, and practise doing
mental arithmetic. Those are the tools that matter, not the difference
between slide rules and calculators as aids for problem solving. Neglecting
the front end of the learning curve inevitably creates problems at the other
end.

Chris Bourne
London UK

----- Original Message -----
From: "Duane Croft" <dcroft@...>
To: <sliderule@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 2:42 AM
Subject: RE: SR OT: Declining Science Education


> Hi John,
>
> I'm afraid I can't agree with you on this one.  You state:
>
> "Don't you have to have to have exactly the same background knowledge of
> trigs, logs, powers, roots and whatever to operate a sci-calc, as you
> would
> have to operate a slide rule? Really?"
>
> My answer to your question is NO.  Example problem:  What's the sine of
> 89.95 degrees?  To find the answer with a calculator, all I need is a
> vague understanding of trig - just that there's some function called
> "sine" that maybe I heard a teacher talk about in class once - and a
> button box to give me the answer.  Now, to find it on a slide rule, I
> need a somewhat more detailed knowledge of trig, i.e. that the sine of
> 89.95 degrees is the same as the cosine of 0.05, then I need to know the
> relationship between degrees and radians (Pi radians = 180 degrees) in
> order to convert 0.05 degrees to .000873 radians, then I need a little
> calculus so that I know that the cosine of x radians is 1 - (x^2)/2! +
> (x^4)/4! -..  Only then can I plug and chug on my slide rule - using the
> first two terms of that expansion and (in 2 slide movements and 1 cursor
> movements on any slide rule with A/B, C/D scales) find and answer of
> 0.999999619.
>
> Slide rules are harder to use.  There are advantages to this.  You only
> build muscles by digging ditches with a shovel, not by using a
> bulldozer.
>
> Duane
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Mosand [mailto:jomosand@...]
> Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 3:26 PM
> To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: SV: SR OT: Declining Science Education
>
> -
>
> Honestly, I can't understand how one can "find the answer...by asking a
> button box..."
>
> Don't you have to have to have exactly the same background knowledge of
> trigs, logs, powers, roots and whatever to operate a sci-calc, as you
> would
> have to operate a slide rule? Really?
>
> Without that knowledge, a calculator with all those keys would look sort
> of
> meaningless.
>
> And I don't think that a calculator can give you an answer "by magic".
>
> The calculator can't give you any short cuts in the understanding of
> math,
> only more convenient solutions and more accurate answers, if those are
> desirable...
>
> Only my humble opinion :-)
> John Mosand
>
>
>   <snip>
>   Now, when you can find the answer to any problem you want
>   by asking a button box and getting the answer by "magic" (i.e. - most
>   people don't have a clue how the answer was arrived at), not as many
>   people are going into science and engineering for their career.  Hmmm,
>   could there be a connection?
>   <snip>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>
>
> ADVERTISEMENT
>
> <http://rd.yahoo.com/SIG=129tc21ht/M=295196.4901138.6071305.3001176/D=gr
> oups/S=1705083376:HM/EXP=1084062111/A=2128215/R=0/SIG=10se96mf6/*http:/c
> ompanion.yahoo.com> click here
>
>
> <http://us.adserver.yahoo.com/l?M=295196.4901138.6071305.3001176/D=group
> s/S=:HM/A=2128215/rand=715103586>
>
>   _____
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> *         To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sliderule/
>
> *         To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> sliderule-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> <mailto:sliderule-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe>
>
> *         Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>  Service.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Hi all: I have been reading the numerous emails in answer to this one that
Duane sent us. The article he refers to has a familiar theme. It started
when Sputnik went into space and has not let up. We in the U.S.A. often read
articles that our educational system is falling behind the rest of the
world. And usually there are some sort of statistics to prove it. Personally
I agree with them, but cannot get to exited about it. For a long time we
have seen other countries step into areas once dominated by the U.S.A. We
have seen steel, automobiles, and aerospace emerge very strong in these
countries. Our space race competition with the U.S.S.R. has been good for
science. And increased competition from Europe, China, Japan and other
countries can only benefit the advancement of knowledge throughout the
world. In many respects the impact of this increased competition has been
gradual over time in the U.S.A., but not without dislocations of jobs which
have been outsourced throughout the world. Recently we have read of the
computer jobs going to India, and more and more medical professionals from
there moving to the U.S.A. to fill a vacuum that has been developing for a
long time. The first movement is viewed as negative to domestic jobs, while
the second should be viewed as positive. My personal view is that the future
world will be better off with this wide balancing of science and technology
that is emerging.
Now for the negative. It has to do with the computer as a black box. More
and more in science and business I see a reliance on computer programs that
are dumbing the brains of its users. Answers emerge from programs that no
one can verify and these are accepted without questions as to their
validity. More importantly the recipient does not know how to question the
result. It seems responsibility for the result is being passed more and more
from the recipient to the computer. How sad when all one has to do is press
a button and that is the sum total of the thinking process. Is that
progress? What do others think about this computer thing? Best regards, Bill



  -----Original Message-----
From: Duane Croft [mailto:dcroft@...]
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 3:13 PM
To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
Subject: SR OT: Declining Science Education


   Hi All,

   There's an interesting, if somewhat biased, article on CNN at

   http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/05/06/science.education.ap/index.html

   It bemoans the fact that the "United States could lose its prominence in
   the fields of science and technology."  As I said, it's somewhat biased
   - I'm not at all sure that the US has "prominence in the fields of
   science and technology," but I didn't write the article.

   The interesting part, to my mind, is a statement later in the article:
   "Many of those who entered the expanding science and engineering work
   force in the 1960s and 1970s (the baby boom generation) are expected to
   retire in the next 20 years, and their children are not choosing careers
   in science and engineering in the same numbers as their parents."  How
   fascinating - back when people had to figure things out by hand via
   slide rule or log tables or paper and pencil (and therefore actually
   knew how things worked); people choose to go into science and
   engineering.  Now, when you can find the answer to any problem you want
   by asking a button box and getting the answer by "magic" (i.e. - most
   people don't have a clue how the answer was arrived at), not as many
   people are going into science and engineering for their career.  Hmmm,
   could there be a connection?

   <<Grin>>

   Despairingly yours,
   Duane


   [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>SR part:  When I show a sliderule to offshore people, they NEVER seem
>to know what it is.  At least USA engineers can recognize one :-)
>
>Kevin

Well, well, well, in some offshore countries (western Europe, Japan),
older engineers ( >50y) do, as far as I know. They often have a pair
somewhere at home.

Eryn Vorn

-

I'm sorry, but I insist on sticking to my quoted statement!

Why would anybody want to know the sine of an angle without knowing what it
means and how it functions in a context??

In addition, one would always have to learn the OS. In the case of calcs,
there is a great difference between AOS and RPN. Without knowing which and
how it works, one would be lost. The same goes for slide rules. Each slide
rule also in a way has its own OS, i.e. which scales relate to each other
and how.

John Mosand


   Hi John,

   I'm afraid I can't agree with you on this one.  You state:

   "Don't you have to have to have exactly the same background knowledge of
   trigs, logs, powers, roots and whatever to operate a sci-calc, as you
   would have to operate a slide rule? Really?"

   My answer to your question is NO.  Example problem:  What's the sine of
   89.95 degrees?  To find the answer with a calculator, all I need is a
   vague understanding of trig - just that there's some function called
   "sine" that maybe I heard a teacher talk about in class once - and a
   button box to give me the answer.  Now, to find it on a slide rule, I
   need a somewhat more detailed knowledge of trig, i.e. that the sine of
   89.95 degrees is the same as the cosine of 0.05, then I need to know the
   relationship between degrees and radians (Pi radians = 180 degrees) in
   order to convert 0.05 degrees to .000873 radians, then I need a little
   calculus so that I know that the cosine of x radians is 1 - (x^2)/2! +
   (x^4)/4! -..  Only then can I plug and chug on my slide rule - using the
   first two terms of that expansion and (in 2 slide movements and 1 cursor
   movements on any slide rule with A/B, C/D scales) find and answer of
   0.999999619.

   Slide rules are harder to use.  There are advantages to this.  You only
   build muscles by digging ditches with a shovel, not by using a
   bulldozer.

   Duane


   -----Original Message-----
   From: John Mosand [mailto:jomosand@...]
   Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 3:26 PM
   To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
   Subject: SV: SR OT: Declining Science Education

   -

   Honestly, I can't understand how one can "find the answer...by asking a
   button box..."

   Don't you have to have to have exactly the same background knowledge of
   trigs, logs, powers, roots and whatever to operate a sci-calc, as you
   would
   have to operate a slide rule? Really?

   Without that knowledge, a calculator with all those keys would look sort
   of
   meaningless.

   And I don't think that a calculator can give you an answer "by magic".

   The calculator can't give you any short cuts in the understanding of
   math,
   only more convenient solutions and more accurate answers, if those are
   desirable...

   Only my humble opinion :-)
   John Mosand


     <snip>
     Now, when you can find the answer to any problem you want
     by asking a button box and getting the answer by "magic" (i.e. - most
     people don't have a clue how the answer was arrived at), not as many
     people are going into science and engineering for their career.  Hmmm,
     could there be a connection?
     <snip>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Kevin,
   I have a few SR ads, but have a hard time finding these. Would collect more if
I ran across them.
Thanks for sharing that link with us.

      Gary Flom
   ----- Original Message -----
   From: kkdarling
   To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
   Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 10:50 PM
   Subject: SR Sliderule advertisement collecting - nice one on ebay now


   Item number:

   2243262252 "1957 Good Year Aircraft Ad: Rapier Slide Rule Sheath"

   (Use ebay search, put in the number above.)

   Thought someone might be interested.   I collect flight computer
   ads.  Do others here collect "regular" sliderule ads?

   Kevin



         Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

To follow John Mosand's comment, I don't think the problem is simply in
"pushing the button box" (i.e., the calculator). A bigger problem is in
over-reliance on all the canned computer programs that are now available for all
sorts of
engineering designs.
The student is exposed to these programs in school, and all too often is left
with the inpression that "that's all there is" to engineering.

That recent-grad user (or even a reassigned experienced user working outside
his/her field of experience) can get "an answer" quickly and cheaply, but have
no feel for whether or not the answer makes sense.  And the experienced
engineering supervisors who should catch such questionable "designs", are mostly
out-to-pasture fishing and trading sliderules.  (:>)

In my working life, we often saw this problem with cheap "canned program"
work in engineering job-shops, both overseas and domestic. The work was correct
most of the time, but NOT all of the time. And in the chemical industry, safety
and environmental considerations (and the enormous cost of today's plants)
mean the work must be right ALL of the time.

You've all heard me on this soap-box before, and I've been gone from
engineering management for three years now without "the world coming to an end",
but I
still worry.

One of my old engineers was fond of the saying: "You want cheap, fast, and
right?  Well, you can have any two out of the three."  With canned design
programs, management gets the first two all right, and just ASSUMES the
infallible
computer is providing the third.

We've seen the calculator adversely impact arithmetical skills in K-12
education if not used properly; I've seen the big-brother (i.e., the computer
program) adversely impact engineering education. I hope things are better than
in
"my day".

Cyron Lawson


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Can any readers shed more light on the following rule and on Teknor in
general?

Today I received in the mail, much to my delighted surprise, two rules from
a friend in Sweden. One is a nice little promotional UTO 601, but the other
is more unusual in that it's not recorded in Hopp.

The scales, starting with the named side, are:

LL01 LL02 LL03 DF/CF CIF CI C/D LL3 LL2 LL1 // L K A/B T ST S/D DI P

The name (on the slide) is "Poly-e No. 930U" and the brand name Teknor.

It's a plasic rule of similar quality to high end F/C and Aristo rules, and
it has copper-colored metal end braces. The cursor is of plastic with what
seems to be two metal strips sandwiched between the two halves at top and
bottom. The trig side of the cursor has two additional small hairlines.

The ink is black with some scales picked out in red: LLO1/2/3, CKF amd CI,
DI and P. On this example the red ink has bled fairly ferociously. It was
sent to me in a soft leather case in light brown with a pop fastener, no
belt loop or  anything like that.

The scale arrangement strikes me as unusual in that on the 'trig' side you
must use A/B as your base scales, because where you'd expect C/D you in fact
get S/D. Either that or of course turn the rule over, or take out the slide
and turn it over.

There are no date marks or codes of any sort at all, as far as I can see. I
would be grateful if any readers can tell me more about the company, Teknor,
when it flourished and about the rules it made.

Chris Bourne
London UK

"Now for the negative. It has to do with the computer as a black box.
More and more in science and business I see a reliance on computer
programs that are dumbing the brains of its users."

I once saw an interview in which Hans Bethe made a similar comment.
In my limited experience I have seen it really work that way.  In the
last few years I worked with some engineers using computer programs
to analyze heat dissippation from a telecom switch.  The programs
they used didn't seem to be of the black box sort.  They demanded a
considerable amount of knowledge by the engineer.

Jerry

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Mosand" <jomosand@...>
Date: Sat, 8 May 2004 15:59:05 +0200
To: <sliderule@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: SV: SR OT: Declining Science Education

Re: -
Re:
Re: I'm sorry, but I insist on sticking to my quoted statement!
Re:
Re: Why would anybody want to know the sine of an angle without knowing what it
Re: means and how it functions in a context??
Re:
Re:
Re: John Mosand
Re:
\\Exactly right, John. Knowing the sine of, say, 75 (the SR and the Calc don't
specify degrees at this point). Now, what the heck do you do with it. OK, you
heard a teacher mention it. Does that tell you how much grease you need to
install it? Point is, there are many functions on a Calc and on a slide rule.
The function without a use is... well... useless.

KrazyKyngeKorny
raykornele@...

--
___________________________________________________________
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Hi Chris,

I have to agree with you at least somewhat.  The first important thing
is for people to learn how to do (at least) the basic math
manipulations.  I was an engineer for nearly 20 years before I decided
to go back to school.  It scares me what I see there.  I know one girl
in her early 20's, a graduate student in a non-technical field who is
very, very bright, probably one of the top 5 in her class.  I saw her
panic when a professor asked her what 80% of 300 was.  She started
digging frantically for her calculator.  The professor gave her the
answer, but I noticed she had her calculator out on her desk the rest of
the semester.  If you normally use (or at least can use) slide rules or
tables, then you have to possess basic math skills to make them work.
Someone who has only ever used a calculator may never have developed
basic skills.  I could give lots more examples along this line, but
we've had this discussion before.

Duane

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Bourne [mailto:cfpb@...]
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 10:07 PM
To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: SR OT: Declining Science Education

Duane -

I think you are wrong about this. What we used to do was look it up in
our
book of tables. It didn't require any more or less knowledge than using
a
calculator. The slide rule tells you that the answer is "one, near as
dammit" and all the rest of the stuff about calculus is irrelevant to
people
who don't require 7 significant figures. The small number of people who
do
need that sort of precision also tend to know what they are doing.

Basically, if a person knows that the answer to her real life problem is
the
sine of 89.95 deg. then she already knows what a sine is or she wouldn't
formulate the problem in that way. What counts is the ability to frame
the
problem in a way that can produce a solution.

In education, what is really really important is that kids of four and
five
learn to count, and perform addition and subtraction, and practise doing
mental arithmetic. Those are the tools that matter, not the difference
between slide rules and calculators as aids for problem solving.
Neglecting
the front end of the learning curve inevitably creates problems at the
other
end.

Chris Bourne
London UK

----- Original Message -----
From: "Duane Croft" <dcroft@...>
To: <sliderule@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 2:42 AM
Subject: RE: SR OT: Declining Science Education


> Hi John,
>
> I'm afraid I can't agree with you on this one.  You state:
>
> "Don't you have to have to have exactly the same background knowledge
of
> trigs, logs, powers, roots and whatever to operate a sci-calc, as you
> would
> have to operate a slide rule? Really?"
>
> My answer to your question is NO.  Example problem:  What's the sine
of
> 89.95 degrees?  To find the answer with a calculator, all I need is a
> vague understanding of trig - just that there's some function called
> "sine" that maybe I heard a teacher talk about in class once - and a
> button box to give me the answer.  Now, to find it on a slide rule, I
> need a somewhat more detailed knowledge of trig, i.e. that the sine of
> 89.95 degrees is the same as the cosine of 0.05, then I need to know
the
> relationship between degrees and radians (Pi radians = 180 degrees) in
> order to convert 0.05 degrees to .000873 radians, then I need a little
> calculus so that I know that the cosine of x radians is 1 - (x^2)/2! +
> (x^4)/4! -..  Only then can I plug and chug on my slide rule - using
the
> first two terms of that expansion and (in 2 slide movements and 1
cursor
> movements on any slide rule with A/B, C/D scales) find and answer of
> 0.999999619.
>
> Slide rules are harder to use.  There are advantages to this.  You
only
> build muscles by digging ditches with a shovel, not by using a
> bulldozer.
>
> Duane
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Mosand [mailto:jomosand@...]
> Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 3:26 PM
> To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: SV: SR OT: Declining Science Education
>
> -
>
> Honestly, I can't understand how one can "find the answer...by asking
a
> button box..."
>
> Don't you have to have to have exactly the same background knowledge
of
> trigs, logs, powers, roots and whatever to operate a sci-calc, as you
> would
> have to operate a slide rule? Really?
>
> Without that knowledge, a calculator with all those keys would look
sort
> of
> meaningless.
>
> And I don't think that a calculator can give you an answer "by magic".
>
> The calculator can't give you any short cuts in the understanding of
> math,
> only more convenient solutions and more accurate answers, if those are
> desirable...
>
> Only my humble opinion :-)
> John Mosand
>
>
>   <snip>
>   Now, when you can find the answer to any problem you want
>   by asking a button box and getting the answer by "magic" (i.e. -
most
>   people don't have a clue how the answer was arrived at), not as many
>   people are going into science and engineering for their career.
Hmmm,
>   could there be a connection?
>   <snip>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>
>
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>
>
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> ompanion.yahoo.com> click here
>
>
>
<http://us.adserver.yahoo.com/l?M=295196.4901138.6071305.3001176/D=group
> s/S=:HM/A=2128215/rand=715103586>
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>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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>
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>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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>
>
>
>





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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Greetings,

There are a lot of things we do on this list which may not be obvious to
newcomers, and some of us veterans need reminders from time to time, too.  For
that reason, I am putting together this message to do just that.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups offers three email commands for changing your delivery
setting for a group. Sending a blank message to the following addresses
will alter your delivery settings for the group specified.

  sliderule-normal@yahoogroups.com
    changes your delivery setting to Individual Emails.

  sliderule-digest@yahoogroups.com
    changes your delivery setting to Daily Digest.

  sliderule-nomail@yahoogroups.com
    changes your delivery setting to Web Only.

You need to send this email from the address at which you receive the
group emails.  Many thanks to Bill Burns for providing this information.

Here are the other email addresses for the list:

Post message: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:    sliderule-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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List owner:   sliderule-owner@yahoogroups.com


-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Buying, selling, and swapping are activities normally handled by the slide rule
trade list.  You can join that list by going to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sliderule-trade

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are not yet a member of the Oughtred Society, you can find more
information about it at:

http://www.oughtred.org/

You are encouraged to join!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

We have yet another sister list for drawing and drafting instruments.  You can
join that list by going to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DrawingInstruments

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

For that hard to buy for person, be sure to check out the
International Slide Rule Group Merchandise site at:

http://www.cafeshops.com/ShopISRG

Just think, how many people do you know own their very own
ISRG sweatshirt, complete with coffee stains they got from drinking
out of their very own ISRG coffee mug?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

And don't forget to report ALL slide rule sightings to our database which we
have set up for that.  Please help us make it grow.  You may check out the
database or add to it at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sliderule/database

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

And don't forget that we now have a new database set up where you can enter your
contact information.  You can add as much or as little information as YOU
choose.

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This message is set up to repeat periodically, so please read all of it, as I
may make changes from time to time.

Warmest regards,

Craig Kielhofer
Cyril Catt
Listowners

----- Original Message -----
From: CTLPELWV@...
Date: Sat, 8 May 2004 11:29:59 EDT
To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
Subject: SR RE- Declining Science Education

Re: To follow John Mosand's comment, I don't think the problem is simply in
Re: "pushing the button box" (i.e., the calculator). A bigger problem is in
Re: over-reliance on all the canned computer programs that are now available for
all sorts of
Re: engineering designs.
\\
The real cause for concern here is in not learning why. Why do we use sine of an
angle. At least learn the formulae. Calculators are not as much at fault as
those canned computer programs.

When I was in HS in the 50's I got most of the math now taught in college. You
need a college education, now, and even the grads now don't havw what they need.

A similar situation is that all those A+, MCSE, and similar certs no longer get
you into most companies. You need experience, because, "those who can, do. Those
who can't, teach."

KrazyKyngeKorny
raykornele@...

--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
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Hi Chris,

This is an UTO made rule.  UTO made lots of rules for use as
advertising and my guess is that was the intent of the Teknor name,
not that Teknor was a seller of slide rules per se.

I have an UTO 930U Poly-e with just the UTO name, no other
advertising.  Mine has gold-colored end braces and pronounced
bleeding around the red scale markings and numbers (not sure if that
becomes common on these models or not).

You can see the very similar UTO 931U rule in Rod Lovett's collection:
http://sliderules.lovett.com/uto931u/uto931u.htm

It has the same scales layout as the 930U, but with the addition of
an S scale on the back side.  This 930U also show the redesign or new
look that UTO introduced at some point, when they went with all-
yellow highlighting on the slides.

   - Jim Cerny

--- In sliderule@yahoogroups.com, "Chris Bourne" <cfpb@l...> wrote:
> Can any readers shed more light on the following rule and on Teknor
in
> general?
>
> Today I received in the mail, much to my delighted surprise, two
rules from
> a friend in Sweden. One is a nice little promotional UTO 601, but
the other
> is more unusual in that it's not recorded in Hopp.
>
> The scales, starting with the named side, are:
>
> LL01 LL02 LL03 DF/CF CIF CI C/D LL3 LL2 LL1 // L K A/B T ST S/D DI P
>
> The name (on the slide) is "Poly-e No. 930U" and the brand name
Teknor.
>
> It's a plasic rule of similar quality to high end F/C and Aristo
rules, and
> it has copper-colored metal end braces. The cursor is of plastic
with what
> seems to be two metal strips sandwiched between the two halves at
top and
> bottom. The trig side of the cursor has two additional small
hairlines.
>
> The ink is black with some scales picked out in red: LLO1/2/3, CKF
amd CI,
> DI and P. On this example the red ink has bled fairly ferociously.
It was
> sent to me in a soft leather case in light brown with a pop
fastener, no
> belt loop or  anything like that.
>
> The scale arrangement strikes me as unusual in that on the 'trig'
side you
> must use A/B as your base scales, because where you'd expect C/D
you in fact
> get S/D. Either that or of course turn the rule over, or take out
the slide
> and turn it over.
>
> There are no date marks or codes of any sort at all, as far as I
can see. I
> would be grateful if any readers can tell me more about the
company, Teknor,
> when it flourished and about the rules it made.
>
> Chris Bourne
> London UK

Jim -

Thank you very much for this. Clearly it is a UTO rule, which I had not
realised before.

I'm not sure that Teknor is merely an advertiement. It is in small lettering
at the extreme left end of the slide, not at all prominent as you'd expect
with advertising. What's more, Peter Hopp lists several Teknor slide rules
in his book, not including this one. I wonder therefore whether Teknor,
whoever they are, badged the range UTO slide rules for sale in Sweden at
some point.

All the best,

Chris Bourne
London UK

----- Original Message -----
From: "jimcerny2" <cerny@...>
To: <sliderule@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2004 12:26 PM
Subject: SR Re: UTO-made rules with Teknor name


> Hi Chris,
>
> This is an UTO made rule.  UTO made lots of rules for use as
> advertising and my guess is that was the intent of the Teknor name,
> not that Teknor was a seller of slide rules per se.
>
> I have an UTO 930U Poly-e with just the UTO name, no other
> advertising.  Mine has gold-colored end braces and pronounced
> bleeding around the red scale markings and numbers (not sure if that
> becomes common on these models or not).
>
> You can see the very similar UTO 931U rule in Rod Lovett's collection:
> http://sliderules.lovett.com/uto931u/uto931u.htm
>
> It has the same scales layout as the 930U, but with the addition of
> an S scale on the back side.  This 930U also show the redesign or new
> look that UTO introduced at some point, when they went with all-
> yellow highlighting on the slides.
>
>   - Jim Cerny
>
> --- In sliderule@yahoogroups.com, "Chris Bourne" <cfpb@l...> wrote:
> > Can any readers shed more light on the following rule and on Teknor
> in
> > general?
> >
> > Today I received in the mail, much to my delighted surprise, two
> rules from
> > a friend in Sweden. One is a nice little promotional UTO 601, but
> the other
> > is more unusual in that it's not recorded in Hopp.
> >
> > The scales, starting with the named side, are:
> >
> > LL01 LL02 LL03 DF/CF CIF CI C/D LL3 LL2 LL1 // L K A/B T ST S/D DI P
> >
> > The name (on the slide) is "Poly-e No. 930U" and the brand name
> Teknor.
> >
> > It's a plasic rule of similar quality to high end F/C and Aristo
> rules, and
> > it has copper-colored metal end braces. The cursor is of plastic
> with what
> > seems to be two metal strips sandwiched between the two halves at
> top and
> > bottom. The trig side of the cursor has two additional small
> hairlines.
> >
> > The ink is black with some scales picked out in red: LLO1/2/3, CKF
> amd CI,
> > DI and P. On this example the red ink has bled fairly ferociously.
> It was
> > sent to me in a soft leather case in light brown with a pop
> fastener, no
> > belt loop or  anything like that.
> >
> > The scale arrangement strikes me as unusual in that on the 'trig'
> side you
> > must use A/B as your base scales, because where you'd expect C/D
> you in fact
> > get S/D. Either that or of course turn the rule over, or take out
> the slide
> > and turn it over.
> >
> > There are no date marks or codes of any sort at all, as far as I
> can see. I
> > would be grateful if any readers can tell me more about the
> company, Teknor,
> > when it flourished and about the rules it made.
> >
> > Chris Bourne
> > London UK
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

--- In sliderule@yahoogroups.com, "Chris Bourne" <cfpb@l...> wrote:
> Can any readers shed more light on the following rule and on Teknor in
> general?
>
> Today I received in the mail, much to my delighted surprise, two rules from
> a friend in Sweden. One is a nice little promotional UTO 601, but the other
> is more unusual in that it's not recorded in Hopp.
>
> The scales, starting with the named side, are:
>
> LL01 LL02 LL03 DF/CF CIF CI C/D LL3 LL2 LL1 // L K A/B T ST S/D DI P
>
> The name (on the slide) is "Poly-e No. 930U" and the brand name Teknor.
>

Chris, I recently bought two UTO slide rules. One was labelled UTO-Studium 930
and
the other UTO 930. The last one has some bleeding of the red dye on some
numerals.
Both come in thin black leather cases with a signal pop fastener and no other
attachments, i. e., belt loops. The main diference between these two rules is
that the
Studium has the trig scales on the body and the plain 930 has the trig scales on
the
slide. Curiously, both have the P scale on the body. The Studium has double
tangent
scales with the plain 930 has a more traditional single tangent scale.

Marion Moon

A good place to find SR ads is at ephemera (paper collecting) shows.
At least here in the northeast, there are many of these shows covering
the wide range of old paper items - I have been going to them for stock
certificates and financial history, but have started looking also for
SR manuals and ads.

A number of vendors have large notebooks filled with advertisements and
letters, organized by industry, ranging from agricultural to medical to
scientific.  You can spend pleasurable hours digging through these.
You will notice that even after a hundred or more years, some things
never change.

They are quiet, civilized, low-key, but well attended events.  You can
find listings of them with local antique shows; I don't have any online
links at hand.  And who knows, you may find another interesting
category to collect, as if any of us need that...

    -- Pasha

# Pasha Roberts ~ pasha@...
# Lineplot Productions ~ http://www.lineplot.com

On May 8, 2004, at 6:08 PM, gary wrote:

> Kevin,
>    I have a few SR ads, but have a hard time finding these. Would
> collect more if I ran across them.
>  Thanks for sharing that link with us.
>
>       Gary Flom
>    ----- Original Message -----
>    From: kkdarling
>    To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
>    Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 10:50 PM
>    Subject: SR Sliderule advertisement collecting - nice one on ebay
> now
>
>
>    Item number:
>
>    2243262252 "1957 Good Year Aircraft Ad: Rapier Slide Rule Sheath"
>
>    (Use ebay search, put in the number above.)
>
>    Thought someone might be interested.   I collect flight computer
>    ads.  Do others here collect "regular" sliderule ads?
>
>    Kevin
>
>
>
>          Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>                ADVERTISEMENT
>              
>        
>        
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
>    Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>      a.. To visit your group on the web, go to:
>      http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sliderule/
>       
>      b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>      sliderule-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>       
>      c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> Service.
>
>
>
>
>  [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>  •  To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sliderule/
>  
>  • 	 To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> sliderule-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>  
>  • 	 Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> Service.
>
>

Pasha,
   Thanks for that lead. The most ephemera at our house right now is the
Atlanta Journal :)

    Gary Flom
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pasha Roberts" <pasha@...>
To: <sliderule@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2004 2:55 PM
Subject: Re: SR Sliderule advertisement collecting - nice one on ebay now


A good place to find SR ads is at ephemera (paper collecting) shows.
At least here in the northeast, there are many of these shows covering
the wide range of old paper items - I have been going to them for stock
certificates and financial history, but have started looking also for
SR manuals and ads.

A number of vendors have large notebooks filled with advertisements and
letters, organized by industry, ranging from agricultural to medical to
scientific.  You can spend pleasurable hours digging through these.
You will notice that even after a hundred or more years, some things
never change.

They are quiet, civilized, low-key, but well attended events.  You can
find listings of them with local antique shows; I don't have any online
links at hand.  And who knows, you may find another interesting
category to collect, as if any of us need that...

    -- Pasha

# Pasha Roberts ~ pasha@...
# Lineplot Productions ~ http://www.lineplot.com

On May 8, 2004, at 6:08 PM, gary wrote:

> Kevin,
>  I have a few SR ads, but have a hard time finding these. Would
> collect more if I ran across them.
>  Thanks for sharing that link with us.
>
>  Gary Flom
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: kkdarling
>  To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
>  Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 10:50 PM
>  Subject: SR Sliderule advertisement collecting - nice one on ebay
> now
>
>
>  Item number:
>
>  2243262252 "1957 Good Year Aircraft Ad: Rapier Slide Rule Sheath"
>
>  (Use ebay search, put in the number above.)
>
>  Thought someone might be interested. I collect flight computer
>  ads. Do others here collect "regular" sliderule ads?
>
>  Kevin
>
>
>
>  Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>  ADVERTISEMENT
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
>  Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>  a.. To visit your group on the web, go to:
>  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sliderule/
>
>  b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>  sliderule-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>  c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> Service.
>
>
>
>
>  [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
> • To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sliderule/
>
> • To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> sliderule-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> • Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> Service.
>
>




Yahoo! Groups Links

Greetings ---

I am seeking the model numbers of slide rules with 6 inch (15 cm) scale
length.
Does anyone have one of these ?

Thanks,
Ted Hume
San Angelo, Texas


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In sliderule@yahoogroups.com, Eryn Vorn <eryn.vorn@f...> wrote:
>
> >SR part:  When I show a sliderule to offshore people, they NEVER
seem
> >to know what it is.  At least USA engineers can recognize one :-)
> >
> >Kevin
>
> Well, well, well, in some offshore countries (western Europe,
Japan),
> older engineers ( >50y) do, as far as I know. They often have a pair
> somewhere at home.
>
> Eryn Vorn

If they grew up in Japan in the 50's/60's, I would think quite a few
would know how to use a slide rule.  Didn't the Hemmi company do
quite a bit in the Japanese schools to promote slide rules (such as
competitions, etc)?

Bob

On Fri 07-May-04 at 2306 EDT, Chris Bourne wrote:
>
> In education, what is really really important is that kids of four and five
> learn to count, and perform addition and subtraction, and practise doing
> mental arithmetic. Those are the tools that matter [...]

I agree with you, Chris, and think there's cause for not a little
worry in many schools.  Our 10 year old son's elementary school
switched to something called Investigative (or Discovery) Math this
year, and it's complete garbage.  He used to love math and now
loathes it - and I hate to say that I can't blame him.  If you're not
aware of what this is, please see http://mathematicallycorrect.com or
I'll be glad to fill you in offlist with incredible examples of our
son's so-called math teacher telling us calculators are best used for
routine calculations rather than making kids memorize things, that
long division is more trouble than its worth, etc.  (Yes, we are
enrolling our sons in a new school next fall!)  I also seem to
remember someone on this list from Australia - sorry I've forgotten
who - complaining about just this program a while back.

Possibly related are the observations of a coworker of mine here at
the Univ of Delaware who teaches thermodynamics.  Each of the past 7
years that he's worked here he's given a test of basic arithmetic
skills to incoming freshmen in his classes; things like multiplication
and division, working with fractions and decimals, etc.  He says each
year fewer and fewer students can do all of the problems.  The past
few years he's resorted to offering an after hours free class in
arithmetic skills.  He has more takers each year, and says the
students are quickly brought up to speed, showing the weakness is in
the math programs many went through.

I know we often hear the sky is falling in education and yet everything
seems to roll along without problems after all.  But something really
seems wrong here to me, whether or not the students' educations survive
the system intact.

And I wonder how many scientists and engineers are being lost because
of how children react to programs like this.  I think Chris is right
that the foundation is most important because, after all, not much can
be built on a weak one.

	 Mike Markowski

Chris,
You may be right, Teknor could have been a reseller the way Post and
Dietzgen in the USA resold rules made by others.  In any case, Teknor
rules appear to be very uncommon:
1. In searching the eBay sales archive at Rod Lovett's site, there
are no matches for Teknor, even when including UK and German eBay
sales.
2. There is only one example in Herman Herwijnen's CD database (ver.
5.1), with match no. 2520 for a Teknor 57/K plastic rule without a
picture.  He lists Teknor as the manufacturer, perhaps implying the
UTO name was not on that example.
3. Teknor does not show up in Rod Lovett's literature search of slide
rule publications.

This could be another example where rarity (the "R" word!) and demand
are far apart!

  - Jim

--- In sliderule@yahoogroups.com, "Chris Bourne" <cfpb@l...> wrote:
> Jim -
>
> Thank you very much for this. Clearly it is a UTO rule, which I had
not
> realised before.
>
> I'm not sure that Teknor is merely an advertiement. It is in small
lettering
> at the extreme left end of the slide, not at all prominent as you'd
expect
> with advertising. What's more, Peter Hopp lists several Teknor
slide rules
> in his book, not including this one. I wonder therefore whether
Teknor,
> whoever they are, badged the range UTO slide rules for sale in
Sweden at
> some point.
>

I emailed this picture to Ted separately but here is a  link to an
image of a six in Graphoplex
http://www.mckenna-tessman.com/srpics/graphoplex800.jpg

I don't know the model number so if you do know it please post it
here.

Jerry

Hi Ted,

Try checking my web site   www.rose-vintage-instruments.com --
Searching under Slide Rules for "6 inch"

Dick

Dick Rose
181 Royal Farm East
Blacklick, OH 43004

Phone: 614-861-3312
Email: rarose@...
Web Site: www.rose-vintage-instruments.com

   -----Original Message-----
   From: tedhume@... [mailto:tedhume@...]
   Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 10:11 AM
   To: sliderule@yahoogroups.com
   Subject: SR 6 inch Slide Rule ?


   Greetings ---

   I am seeking the model numbers of slide rules with 6 inch (15 cm) scale
   length.
   Does anyone have one of these ?

   Thanks,
   Ted Hume
   San Angelo, Texas


   [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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