TECH HISTORY
SLIDE RULES AT TECH
W
BY JENNIFER HERSEIM
SPRING 2021 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE
SCOTT DINERMAN, STC 03
90
tenacity and hard work can achieve,” he says. As a senior in high school, Williamson visited a friend at Tech to get the lay of the land. “I came away with two goals for the summer before I entered school there,” he says. The first was to purchase a slide rule and become proficient with its use, and the second was to learn to play bridge. “Both skills stood me in good stead during the 13 quarters it took me to ‘get out’ of Tech,” Williamson says. Many students found themselves in similar circumstances in their first quarter, buying a slide rule and learning how the contraption worked. In September of 1959, Maurice Sheppard, ChE 64, started Tech never having heard of a slide rule. “That changed quickly,” he remembers. Sheppard carried his slide rule faithfully with him for the five years it took to complete his co-op program and earn his bachelor’s degree. “I still have my slide rule, and I showed it to my grandson, who is a graduate engineer. He never heard of one. Times change.”
PHOTOGRAPH
WONDER WOMAN has her lasso of truth. Luke Skywalker has his lightsaber. Scotty has his replicator. For generations of Yellow Jackets, they had their trusty slide rules. This wooden gadget, usually no more than a foot long, was never too far when a problem needed solving—as long as that problem involved the four basic arithmetic functions, trigonometry, logarithms, or exponentials. For anyone who took drownproofing, attended quarters, or went to Saturday classes, they would be hard-pressed to see a slide rule now and not think back to a certain era at Georgia Tech. James D. Williamson III, ME 62, keeps his slide rule in a display case that he purchased from Tech 30 or so years ago. “It’s hanging on the wall in my study as a reminder of what