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Editorial Pepys and His Slide Rule

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Editorial Pepys and His Slide Rule ISSN 1466-3570 February 2004 No. 16 NEWSLETTER of the UK SLIDE RULE CIRCLE Editor: Colin Barnes, 189 Mildenhall Road, Fordham, Ely, Cambs. CB7 5NW England Tel: 01638 720317 e-mail: [email protected] Editorial publications that are now available on CD. I Email ‘spam’ is an inconvenience at know that some members prefer the CD its best and all of us who use this method of format whilst others, myself included, feel that communication must be utterly fed up with it. there is no substitute for the hard copy. Some There are methods of filtering but I know of compromise seems called for and at present know way of eliminating it altogether. I have only past issues of SS and the Gazette will be in the past deleted important messages in made available at a price that does not unduly frustration, fortunately realising my mistake in discriminate against members who paid the time and retrieving before final deletion or by full price for the originals and have religiously contacting the sender for a copy. paid their subscriptions to SS. Can I suggest that when messaging A suggestion is to make both among ourselves we ensure that the “Subject” publications available in both formats (SS carries a key word such as ‘Slide Rule’, from 2005 and the Gazette from Issue 5). UKSRC, or one that will be immediately With publication of Gazette 5 you will be recognised by the recipient. For those of us invited to order in your preferred format and a plagued with unwanted mail this will be a similar preference will be offered with great help. UKSRC membership renewal next year. Technically all copies of SS and the Gazette are now available on CD but it is planned to introduce these in phases. However, if anyone has a special request for any of these, please contact the “office”. In addition to SS and the Gazette, the Proceedings of the UK International Meetings in ’96, ’99 and 02 are also available on one CD. Your editor would also appreciate any comments from members on these proposals as it continues to be our aim to provide the best of service to all the members. Pepys and his Slide Rule Your Editor with an item from his other collection Colin Barnes You may be aware of my interest in collecting items concerning Bassett’s Cajori in his “ History of the Logarithmic Slide Liquorice Allsorts. This has come about as, Rule” quotes from Pepys diary: being partial to these sweets, my offspring August 10, 1664; “Abroad to find out one to have found this fact an easy option when it engrave my tables upon my new sliding rule comes to giving me Christmas and birthday with silver plates, it being so small that gifts particularly when they are packed in Brown, who made it, cannot get one to do it. special containers. The result of this harmless So I get Cocker, the famous writing master, to (?) addiction is illustrated above. Please do it, and I set an hour beside him to see him excuse an old man’s foibles. design it all, and strange it is to see him, with his natural eyes, to cut so small at his first Skid Stick and the Slide Rule designing it, and read it all over, without any Gazette. In the “Bookworm” section of this missing, when, for my life, I could not, with my issue you will find details of these best skill, read one word or letter of it” 1 ©2003 The UK Slide Rule Circle and the contributors Skid Stick Issue 16 February 2004 Cajori states that the diary leaves in George to Wotton, who, on the 28 th of the doubt the theory that this was a logarithmic same month, was married at Albury to Mrs . slide rule. Another extract from the diary Caldwell, an heiress of an ancient however, says of the rule, that it “was very Leicestershire family, … pretty for all questions of Arithmetic ” It will be recalled that William Oughtred was The recent publication “Samuel Pepys – the Rector of Albury at this time. It cannot be Unequalled Self”, by Claire Tomalin (Viking, assumed that Oughtred officiated at the 2002, ISBN 0 670 88568 1) provides some wedding as it was customary at that time to further interesting nuggets of information. select the location and the ‘vicar’ separately. She says; On the 17 th August 1654, Evelyn “Like the well-trained scholar he was, Pepys writes: I went to visit Mr. Hyldiard, at his had embarked on the study of everything he house at Horsely (formerly the great Sir needed to know to carry out his service to the Walter Raleigh’s), where met me Mr. navy, from its early records, to its recruiting Oughtred, the famous mathematician; he methods, from multiplication tables and the showed me a box, or golden case, of divers use of the slide rule to the best methods of rich and aromatic balsams, which a chymist, a timber measurement …” scholar of his had sent him from Germany. Later in the same book, Tomalin The Victorian edition of the diaries adds a relates Pepys’ confrontation with three footnote; “Evelyn is here in error: Mr highwaymen while travelling by coach out of Hyldiard was of East Horsely, Sir Walter of London to the riverside village of Chelsea. A West”. that time, (September, 1693), the road ran Twelve months later Evelyn meets through meadowland past farms and a few Oughtred again. The diary entry for 28 th large villas. One of the masked and mounted August reads Came that renowned men put a pistol to the breast of the coachman mathematician, Mr Oughtred to see me, I while another threatened Pepys. According to sending my coach to bring him to Wotton, Tomalin; being now very aged. Amongst other The men asked what he had, and he handed discourse, he told me he thought water to be over his purse with about £3 in it and the the philosopher’s first matter, and that he was various necessaries he carried with him, his well persuaded of the possibility of their silver ruler , his gold pencil, his magnifying elixir; he believed the sun to be a material glass and five mathematical instruments. It fire, the moon a continent, as appears by the made an impressive collection, and when he late Selenographers: he had strong asked to have back one particular instrument apprehensions of some extraordinary event to he was told that, since he was a gentleman, as happen the following year, from the his assailant claimed to be also, if he sent to calculation of coincidence with the diluvian the Runner Tavern in Charing Cross the period; and added that it might possibly to following day he should have it. convert the Jews by our Saviour’s visible Thomas Hoyle was apprehended at appearance, or to judge the world; and the Runner Tavern with Pepys’ pencil in his therefore, his word was Parate in occursum ; possession. As a result, Hoyle and another he said original sin was not met with in the man, Samuel Gibbons were found guilty of Greek Fathers, yet he believed the thing; this felony and robbery and hanged. was from some discourse on Dr. Taylor’s late As a sideline Tomalin says that Pepys book, which I had lent him. was accompanied on the coach by “some Another footnote here relating to Oughtred ladies” and his nephew, John, and that one of states “Rector of Albury. Some capital prints the ladies, Mary Skinner, was “Lady Pepys” of him exist, by Hollar”. for the occasion! Professor John Orrell John Evelyn on Oughtred The Times of September 26, 2003, recorded the death of Professor Orrell. Orrell might be The diary of John Evelyn (1620- particularly remembered for his academic 1706) is probably less well known than that of work on the reconstruction of the Globe Pepys, however, as a social history of the Theatre. Perhaps more important was his period is no less interesting. Evelyn moved in reputation among academics on the Alberta high circles and amongst the artists, scientists campus for having a slide rule in his pocket gentry and nobility of the time. The family rather than the customary pen. Professor John home was at Wotton near Guildford and an Orrell, theatre historian, was born on entry in the diary for in 1640 says: … and, on December 31, 1934 and died in Canada on th the 20 (May) I returned with my brother September 16, 2003. 2 www.sliderules.org.uk Skid Stick Issue 16 February 2004 Logarithmorvm for years with complex mathematical calculations. [This newspaper cutting was kindly submitted by Mrs. Christine Schmitt-Mackinnon] New Members With apologies to Robert Adams, whose name should have been included in the last issue of Skid Stick. Robert Adams 54 Warwick Street Enfield South Australia 5083 Australia Picture: Graham Hamilton, courtesy The Herald. Yukio Kubota MATHS BIBLE: Napier’s book of logarithms, published in Kitamatsuno 1562 1620, revolutionised mathematics and made complex Ihara-gun Fujikawa-cyou equations easier to solve Shizuoka 4213301 Japan Book of logarithms adds up to a coup for researchers The above picture and following text appeared Change of Address in the Glasgow Herald on the 10 th October, 2003 and is reproduced here with their kind Please note the following changes: permission. The Herald (Glasgow) Klaus Kuehn www.theherald.co.uk © Newsquest Media Schlagfeldstrasse 9 Group. 82239 Alling-Biburg Germany Catherine Lyst Tel: 08141 347 604 ONE of the most important books by John Fax: 08141 347 605 Napier, who helped revolutionise mathe- matics, is now accessible to scholars and Hugh Tidy researchers.
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