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To: python-list@python.org
From: Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Significant digits in a float?
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 20:02:31 -0400
Organization: IISS Elusive Unicorn
References: <mailman.9549.1398700831.18130.python-list@python.org> <535f0f9f$0$29965$c3e8da3$5496439d@news.astraweb.com> <mailman.9565.1398741802.18130.python-list@python.org> <535f3bf7$0$11109$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> <mailman.9594.1398818045.18130.python-list@python.org> <roy-D8BB79.20423329042014@news.panix.com>
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On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 20:42:33 -0400, Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> declaimed the
following:

>In article <mailman.9594.1398818045.18130.python-list@python.org>,
> Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>> in a physics or chemistry class the recommended result is
>> 
>>    1.1 * 2.2 => 2.4
>
>More than recommended.  In my physics class, if you put down more 
>significant digits than the input data justified, you got the problem 
>marked wrong.
>
>> (one reason slide-rules were acceptable for so long -- and even my high
>> school trig course only required slide-rule significance even though half
>> the class had scientific calculators [costing >$100, when a Sterling
>> slide-rule could still be had for <$10]) <G>
>
>Sterling?  Snort.  K&E was the way to go.

	Math teacher was selling them in my 10th grade... Actually I already
owned a Faber-Castell 57/22 "Business" ruler (which did NOT have the CF/DF
scales set for *PI) and a Pickett N-1010-ES Trig rule.

	I've misplaced the Sterling, but I'm fairly sure it was a deci-trig
log-log model.

	In the last 15-20 years I've added NIB versions of Faber-Castell 1/54
Darmstadt, Pickett N-803-ES Dual-Base Log-Log, Pickett Cleveland Institute
of Electronics N-515-T, and a pair of Sama&Etani/Concise circular pocket
rules (models 200 and 600).

	Heh... I wonder if the VEs would have noticed the CIE rule had lots of
electronics formulas on the back, if I'd taken it to the exam session where
I passed both General and Amateur Extra tests. I couldn't take a calculator
-- all of mine were programmable. But the slide-rule I took was just about
as perplexing to the VEs.
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/