On the History of Gunter's Scale and the Slide Rule During the Seventeenth Century — John Shaqi
On the History of Gunter's Scale and the Slide Rule During the Seventeenth CenturyCajori, Florian
History
On the History of Gunter's Scale and the Slide Rule During the Seventeenth Century
Cajori, Florian
Slide-rule
His enlarged circular rules are illustrated in the Bodleian Library copy of
Grammelogia IV by four diagrams, two of them being the two drawings on the
two title-pages at the beginning of the Grammelogia IV, 4 inches in
external diameter, and exhibiting eleven concentric circular lines carrying
graduations of different sorts. In the second of these designs all circles
are fixed. The other two drawings are each 10¾ inches in external diameter
and exhibit 18 concentric circular lines; the folded sheet of the first of
these drawings is inserted between pages (23) and (24), the second folded
sheet between pages (83) and (84). All circles of this second instrument
are fixed. Counting in the two small drawings in Grammelogia III, there are
in all six drawings of slide rules in the Bodleian Grammelogia IV. On pages
(24) to (43) Delamain explains the graduation of slide rules. He takes
first a rule which has one circle of equal parts, divided into 1000 equal
divisions. From a table of logarithms he gets log 2 = 0.301; from the
number 301 in the circle of equal parts he draws a line to the center of
the circle and marks the intersection with the circles of numbers by the
figure 2. Thus he proceeds with log 3, log 4, and so on; also with log sin
x and log tan x. For log sin x he uses two circles, the first (see page
(27)) for angles from 34′ 24″ to 5° 44′ 22″, the second circle from 5° 44′
22″ to 90°. The drawings do not show the seconds. He suggests many
different designs of rules. On page (29) he says:
For the single projection of the Circles of my Ring, and the dividing and
graduating of them: which may bee so inserted upon the edges of Circles
of mettle turned in the forme of a Ring, so that one Circle may moove
betweene two fixed, by helpe of two stayes, then may there be graduated
on the face of the Ring, upon the outer edge of the mooveable and inner
edge of the fixed, the Circle of Numbers, then upon the inner edge of
that mooveable Circle, and the outward edge of that inner fixed Circle
may be inserted the Circle of Sines, and so according to the description
of those that are usually made.
In addition to these lines he proceeds to mention the circle giving the
ordinary division into degrees and minutes, and two circles of tangents on
the other side of the rule.
Next Delamain explains an arrangement of all the graduation on one side of
the rule by means of “a small channell in the innermost fixed Circle, in
which may be placed a small single Index, which may have sufficient length
to reach from the innermost edge of the Mooveable Circle, unto the outmost
edge of the fixed Circle, which may be mooved to and fro at pleasure, in
the channell, which Index may serve to shew the opposition of Numbers” (p.
(31)). From this it is clear that the invention of the “runner” goes back
to the very first writers on the slide rule.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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