Let alone memorizing the 4 place log tables because you were too poor to afford a slide rule (about $27.95 ca. 1965, equivalent to $211.29 in today's dollars for a cumulative inflation rate of 656%).

I guess I don't equate being able to multiply 6 by 9 with memorizing four-place log tables.

 

Yes that is true for me too, but I was incredibly lucky to be given a slide rule by my uncle who had been invalided out of his work and had become a church verger! I practiced with it and prized it above all other possessions.

Still have my ED Log-Log duplex Deci-trig

 

I guess I don't equate being able to multiply 6 by 9 with memorizing four-place log tables.

My point was about the effort some people were willing to go through to save some money. It's not quite the same in this age of entitlement.

 

My point was about the effort some people were willing to go through to save some money. It's not quite the same in this age of entitlement.

Ah, okay.

 

I guess I don't equate being able to multiply 6 by 9 with memorizing four-place log tables.

No way I can remember them now, (still got the books though) but we had them drilled into us at school when I was about 12 and we were expected to hand in 2hrs homework every day!!!
We did not have Television until I was 16, and we had hobbies, not games. I had to come home and do my homework before eating, then I was free to pursue my hobbies. Our family actually TALKED to each other. My friends children talk to each other on FaceBook or txt even if they are in the house together!!! UH!!!!!

 

No way I can remember them now, (still got the books though) but we had them drilled into us at school when I was about 12 and we were expected to hand in 2hrs homework every day!!!
We did not have Television until I was 16, and we had hobbies, not games. I had to come home and do my homework before eating, then I was free to pursue my hobbies. Our family actually TALKED to each other. My friends children talk to each other on FaceBook or txt even if they are in the house together!!! UH!!!!!

Ten or perhaps fifteen years ago I was at the mall having lunch in the food court and sitting in front of me was a table of about eight high-school age girls. Here they had all come to the mall to be together and yet here they were all of them talking non-stop on their phones. But at some point I realized that one of them was actually talking to girl sitting across the table from her -- but on the phone. Maybe it was the only way they could carry on a conversation without being interrupted by their damn phones!

 

Ten or perhaps fifteen years ago I was at the mall having lunch in the food court and sitting in front of me was a table of about eight high-school age girls. Here they had all come to the mall to be together and yet here they were all of them talking non-stop on their phones. But at some point I realized that one of them was actually talking to girl sitting across the table from her -- but on the phone. Maybe it was the only way they could carry on a conversation without being interrupted by their damn phones!

Our movies have predicted what will eventually happen with boy meets girl and electronic devices.

 

Most high school students in the U.S. severely lack a basic knowledge of science and math and that's something to worry about.

Here in San Francisco, most high school and college grads go to work for the government as "administrative aids" and merely push paper.

Case in point: at my former employer (the city's mass transit agency), the place is top heavy with highly paid administrators (several earn over $300K/year), but they have a problem funding positions for mechanics and technicians.

They claim the city's economy is experiencing a "Tech Boom", but I would guess that 99% of the people in the city can't perform very basic technical jobs much less anything related to science or engineering.

 

No way I can remember them now, (still got the books though) but we had them drilled into us at school when I was about 12 and we were expected to hand in 2hrs homework every day!!!

I didn't even hear about logs until eleventh grade (I think). So that right there might be an indication of the slide from your generation to mine. We were never expected to memorize any tables, but were expected to understand what they were and how to work with them. We were expected to be able to produce a logarithm of a number by hand based directly on our understanding of them (though the way we did that turns out to be rather tedious, producing a log one digit at a time -- but it was the concept that counted).

I found that stuff fascinating and most of my fellow classmates did, too. Today it seems very rare that even a math, science, or engineering major finds it so.