How things used to be, no Vincent content.

[Tom Gaynor]

Driven one of those too.

A friend has a digital very near caliper he bought 10 years ago for £76. It relies on the user to switch it off. It therefore costs a fortune in batteries. The subject came up when I showed him the auto-switch-off model I bought in Lidl for £8.99 a couple of months ago.
I still have my first mic too. Moore and Wright all chrome 0-1". Look at me, maw! Top of the world....

 

[nkt267]

Now where did I leave my slide rule and log tables?.john

 

[mr.hutch]

M&W

As we seem to be wandering down nostalga avenue, I felt urged to add my ten pennies worth, (old money),
yes I regulaly use my Moore and Wright micrometer, inherited from a lady mechanical engineer who practiced in the post war years, which I have allways felt to be unusual in that particular period of industrial relations, (please no politics is intended).
It is stamped No 961, like so many others used by Vincent owners everywhere and still lives in its hard spectacle type case with the small spanner for fine adjustments, also the brown strips of rust preventative paper,' to protect the tool '.
I know I was thick at school, the 1940's, but I never did really understand what logs and anti logs were were all about, was it about making very difficult calculations easy? Please enlighten me John.
If not by the forum I hope to see you at the Suffolk Section meet next weekend.

Do go very carefully on those roads, mr. hutch ;-)

 

[John Cone]

I can remember being thirteen and not saying boo to a goose or even threatening to back chat my parents. I have now got a thirteen year old free to a good home, god how things have changed "for the worse"

 

[Tom Gaynor]

This post is RICH, rich, I tell you, in Vincent context...

I can't help with logs, although I used to go to night-school at Napier College in Edinburgh (Napier discovered logarithms) , and my son went to the same establishment, by then Napier University. I just followed instructions, and lo! A result!
But I can tell you that slide rules are what real engineers use, because slide rules don't delude one into thinking that engineering is an exact science. Slide rules give approximations, and approximations are what engineers need. 2 + 2 may very well equal 4, because 2 is an integer. But 2.0 + 2.0 (real numbers) may very well equal 3.99999999, or 4.00001, and an engineer needs to know this. Engineering is NOT science, it is art. Engineers are trying to find answers when it is not at all clear what the questions should be.
I could rest my case (Your Honour) by pointing out that Phil Irving's nom-de-plume was not "calculator" but "sliderule".
But.
I add the comforting thought, as you wend your way about Britain, that every bridge, by definition, is a prototype. You'd best hope that the engineer's guess was right.
I never cross the Forth Road Bridge, dammit, without thinking that. I reckon that until I hit dry land again, my sphincter could shear a 1/2" diameter iron bar.

Tom

 

[roy the mechanic]

Reply for John Cone, whilst not a fan of rear window stickers, this one may be appropriate- Don't get mad,get even, live long enough to be a problem to your children! Regards,Roy.

 

[Albervin]

Not ALL LOGS ARE THE SAME.....

There are actually 2 types of logarithms; Napierian (natural) & common . The latter is all based on the number 10 & how any number can be expressed as a factor(?) of 10. So log 10=1, log 100 =2 & log 1000 =3.
Multiply 1000 by 1000 & you merely add 3+3 to get 6 & look up anti log 6 to get 1,000,000. Napierian logs are based on the number 2.7182.... (like pi it is never ending). Another term used is exponential logarithm & this is not
the place to explain the intricacies & beauty of pure mathematics.

 

[nobby]

The Scot Napier started Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio in 1614, but was corrected by Yorkshire-man Henry Briggs in 1617 with Logarithmorum Chilias Prima and with Arithmetica Logarithmica in 1624.
Briggs was not able to finish his work, so he handed the stick to Dutchman Ezechiel the Decker from Gouda, who finished the task with help from Adriaen Vlacq between 1626 and 1628. In 1631 Trigonometria Britannica was published. This is considered as the first system which worked!
If you think of 'Vincent HRD' where 'log' was mentioned and you add 378 years to all above years you can see that developing logarithms took as long and as many nationalities as getting my Comet running troublefree!

 

[Tom Gaynor]

A wonderful use of the Napierian constant, "e", 2.7182, short for "exponent", possibly, and i may be prejudiced because i went to nightschool at Napier College in Edinburgh, is that:
The doubling time for anything is 70 divided by the rate of increase. If you are getting 10% interest on your savings, then 1) let me know where and 2) it'll take 7 years to double your money. At current interest rates it'll take 35 years. It is any surprise that the rhyming slang for w*nker is "merchant banker"?

Tom

 

[John Cone]

This is a very difficult subject. Not wanting to give him the same physical violent upbringing I had. Should you raise your voice or grit your teeth as one does when angry, he just says " dad did you know i have childlines number on my phone". But he is my best mate especially when the PC goes up the spout.

So you seem to have had a good upbringing, but have appeared to fail to pass this on to your own child by stating that things have changed for the worse. Whose fault is that?