Log Tables

Log Tables and Slide RulesHow logarithms were solved before the 1970s

Before the invention of calculators, the only alternative to slide rules was to use tables of logarithms. These were published to varying degrees of accuracy.Prior to the advent ofcomputersandcalculators, using logarithms meant using such tables, which were mostly created manually.

What is a log table you ask?

Log Table in a book

Part of a 20th century table of common logarithms in the reference book Abramowitz and Stegun.

Edmund Gunter soon reduced the effort by drawing a number line in which the positions of numbers were proportional to their logs. The scale started at one because the log of one is zero. Two numbers could be multiplied by measuring the distance from the beginning of the scale to one factor with a pair of dividers, then moving them to start at the other factor and reading the number at the combined distance:Soon afterwards, William Oughtred simplified things further by taking two Gunter's lines and sliding them relative to each other thus eliminating the dividers:Slide Rules

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