Slipsticks
For those in technical fields some large number of decades ago, slide rules were THE means of calculation.
No calculators, no PCs, no smart phones, no AI.
Recall (maybe) that slide rules work on the basic principle that adding logarithms is the equivalent of multiplication:
log(A x B) = log A + log B
log (A/B) = log A – log B
log Ac = c log A
Calculators got rid of that principle; Boolean (binary) logic was more conducive to electronic implementation (aka “digital” stuff).
And it’s been that way since … since roughly 1970.
But here now in 2026, AI and quantum computing are the current rage. And Nvidia is the king of the heap in providing the chips that drive that effort. If you have any investments in a ETF or mutual fund, you likely own shares of Nvidia – among if not the largest company in the world with a capitalization of over $5Trillion (1000 times 1 billion) – larger than all but 3 or 4 countries. (Elon Musk himself is now worth about $1T)
This just came over my transom:
A new company is challenging Nvidia … by implementing the electronic slide-rule methodology of using logarithms; binary logic systems have gotten too unwieldy. This is big if they can pull it off.
Tensordyne claims its 72-chip system can run large LLMs four times as fast using 20% of the power of Nvidia’s GB300 system. The “secret” behind the outsized efficiency of the new device is how it does matrix multiplication, the main math of AI. It takes advantage of the fact that the logarithm of A times B equals the logarithm of A plus the logarithm of B.
“We’ve turned multipliers into adders,” explains Gilles Backhus, a Tensordyne founder and vice president of AI. Adders are smaller and more energy-efficient logic circuits than those that do multiplication, he says. So Napier can pack more compute into a smaller area and still save on power.
Can’t help it – this is the kind of stuff that captures my interest.
Holy cannoli. Geez Louise. etc.
This is the stuff that continues to amaze me that you are able/willing
to communicate with dunces like myself. Am very glad you do.
Maybe it’s a break for your brain to do so. Kinda like recess.
A guy I shoot with uses a slide rule to calculate his sight adjustments for wind direction and velocity. There are charts and ballistic programs that most people use these days, and have for quite some time, but the slide rule fits his mad scientist personality perfectly.
To use one, you have to actually understand how math works.
Expect nothing less than a good essay on the topic from a Mines guy.
Earlier this week I dug through my archives, mainly to remind myself what I had kept. These are E6-Bs used to plan a flight route. They’re specialized for aviation, but at their core, they’re nothing more than circular slide rules. The larger E6-B on the left is my late father’s, who was a navigator in the Air Force, and the one the right is from my period in the AF.
Who remembers the Arithma?
You may have become familiar with it in your early youth.
When I was about 3-4 my grandmother showed me how to add and subtract with it. (I started kindergarten at 4)
My mother died more than 10 years ago and my sister was recently going through her stuff and found one and sent it to me. Yeah, my sister is a packrat, might be worse than me, but doubtful – I never throw anything away.
My grandmother, my dad’s mom, had an abacus with a chalkboard on the wall behind the stair, in her dining room. A chair sat beneath that abacus. She had taught all 4 of her kids basic arithmetic on that abacus. Then, 20 some years later she taught all of her 16 grandkids on it. Our last name is 10 letters long. She taught all of us how to spell all of our names (first, middle, last, extension (I’m a Jr.) on that chalkboard.
With Excel you do not need a calculator. I giggle at the old guys at work with a 10 key for calculations while they are working inside a spreadsheet. Excel is the most powerful calculator I know of.
Headed to Topeka shortly to pick up my son from his three plus week stint in Army Reserve training in Mississippi. He said they were wet the whole time, either from sweat or constant rain. That is one way to build character. I am looking forward to conversation with him on the two hour drive back this morning. I will be watching out for deer. I counted 28 in the fields on the way up and 25 on the way back just over three weeks ago.
Saw a dead deer along the road yesterday, been there for a minute or two, all blowed up, legs sticking up at weerd angles.
The wind was such that after we went past we had to open the windows for a mile or so.
Closer to home I saw 3 young ones standing off the road. I stopped and talked to them, they stood there flikking their tails, maybe 30 feet away.