Accuracy?

[Mike Elzinga]

For those of us who used to be proficient with slide rules, the standard technique to limited digit precision is to rescale the problem to smaller units. For example, instead of joules, use electron volts; or instead of meters, use angstroms or nanometers.

Taking logarithms amounted to finding a mantissa for a number between 0 and 1 and adding the appropriate characteristic.

The main issue underlying the proper use of a calculating instrument such as the slide rule is the same issue with any other calculating device. Having a nice computer or calculator doesn’t eliminate the problem of having to rescale. The more powerful the device, the more complex the problems one can solve, provided one learns the techniques that were forced upon those who once used slide rules.

Knowing how to use proper math techniques makes any calculating instrument far more useful.