Panel works, that’s what they look like
I clear a stack of books with logarithm tables from the stool I’m about to sit on in Roger Stapleton’s office and open the top book. There are rows of numbers on each side. I only know something like that from other books. Books full of logarithms are often mentioned in connection with the discovery of Benford’s law because apparently the pages on which the numbers start with 1 become dirtier than the other pages after long use. I look at Roger’s books, but the cut on all of them is evenly yellowed and not more noticeably dirty than anywhere else.
I say I’ve never seen anything like it. “Me too!” says Roger’s colleague Peter Adamson enthusiastically. I look at him surprised because he is over 70. Perhaps logarithm books were used much earlier than I previously thought? “I’ve never seen any with four-digit numbers, only ones with five, six and seven digits,” explains Peter. “Oh,” I say, “I meant I’ve never seen any before.” Roger’s office, where this conversation takes place, is in the Napier Building at the University of St Andrews, named after one of the inventors of the logarithm.
When I later told Aleks (born in 1975) about it, he said: “We still had a blackboard at school, that’s what it was called. But we no longer had a slide rule. A few years before me, we learned to calculate with a slide rule, but we were given the school calculator straight away in the eighth grade.” – “A calculator?” – “It was called a school computer. The SR1.”
(Kathrin Passig)