I think it’s safe to say that we all take calculators for granted. In everyday situations, it’s easy to call up the calculator from the computer or use the one built into your mobile phone. But what was it like to be a schoolkid before handheld calculators? How did students work out complex equations (such as those involving logarithms) before then? Jerome shows us the answer: A Log Book.

Today, it’s a simple matter of punching in numbers and getting the results in an instant. With a Log Book…

Complex multiplications (or divisions) could be done by converting numbers into a logarithm, being the exponent that a base number is raised to give the number. This simplified multiplications and divisions as the exponent could then be added or subtracted and the resultant being reconverted back (antilogarithm) to a number. There were also tables for sines, cosines and tangents as well as for square roots and hyperbolic functions in the Log Book. I know it sounds like a tedious process but it made a world of difference when access to a calculator was limited.

As easy as punching in numbers in a calculator may be, it sounds as if Jerome understood his logarithms better than me! Perhaps we should bring back the log book to help enhance our understanding of mathematics…

Before I get complaints from irate secondary school students, let me direct you to Jerome’s post, Before the calculator…