Nuclear slide-rules from a time after nukes and before pocket-calculators

The Oak Ridge Associated Universities website has a splendid gallery of nuclear-age slide-rules (as Mr Jalopy notes, these are artifacts from an age after nukes but before pocket calculators) -- mostly circular cardboard calculators that help you compute the size of the crater generated by the nuke that touches off WWIII. Shown here, the 1960 Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer by EG&G.

As a convenience to those interested in the effects of nuclear weapons, this circular computer was designed to make data easily available on various weapon effects - some as functions of both yield and range and others on yield alone . . . The weapons data incorporated in this computer were taken from the very informative and useful text, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, edited by Samuel Glasstone for the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project of the Department of Defense.

Nuclear Slide Rules (via Dinosaurs and Robots)

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MORE: Gadgets • High Energy • Old school • Science

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ill lich

I can see these as being pretty handy in the bunker after the blast, wouldn’t want to waste valuable battery power on calculators. Of course, what do I care how big the blast crater is outside, we’re still gonna have to stay inside for months . . . so I guess in that case the slide rule would be more for entertainment than anything else. I’m sure we’ll come up with a way to gamble using the slide rules. “I’ll see your can of mixed vegetables, and raise you an iodine tablet!”
fencesitter

Apologies if this gets duplicated, I tried posting anonymously sonce I didn’t want to look up my password.

Mr Jalopy forgets the big advantage of this over a pocket calculator- EMP is going to render the (electronic) calculator useless.

And these slide rules are mostly self explanatory and easy to use- unlike all the interest/loan functions on a financial calculator, for instance. Then again, I haven’t used any pocket calculator more modern than an early 1980′s HP.
Takuan

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmv_R2hOnNI
Anonymous

I used to hold EG&G stock, and had a summer job studying cratering, so this is bringing back old memories.

@10: One of the reasons cratering was (is?) considered relevant is exactly because it is *not* fuzzy: if the target has been replaced by a crater, you can feel reasonably confident that it has been destroyed. I’d suspect that calculators such as this one are as accurate as their designers could make them.
arkizzle

Thanks WordTipping,
you just tangentially inspired a LOLcat :)

I Can Haz-Mat?
Nelson.C

I’d say that slide rules are more atompunk than steampunk. Especially this one.
Lexica

Nur @ #17:

Sliderules aren’t steampunk – they actually are harder to use. It’s not like putting typewriter keys on your computer’s keyboard. It involves knowing a great deal about what operations you actually perform to do maths.

Yes, indeed. The first day of junior high, the math teacher told us that use of calculators would not be allowed in class. “What about slide rules?” asked smart-alec me. “If you want to learn how to use a slide rule, you can use a slide rule in class,” was the response. Whee! I went straight home and said “Hey, Dad, show me how to use that nifty circular slide rule that’s been gathering dust in your desk drawer since before I was born.”
Trent Hawkins

I know what I’m buying for next Halloween.
It wouldn’t be a Strangelove costume without it!
Anonymous

@ #2: Make, Schmake. John Walker at Fourmilab already did the heavy lifting: http://www.fourmilab.ch/bombcalc/brico.html
beekone

These are all Make projects waiting to happen. Quick, someone with motivation, get on it!
cowmix

Hehe… This looks like the device my wife used when she would compute the due date for our children when she was pregnant.

http://www.thedatewheel.com/images/pregnancy-wheel.jpg
Nygard

I actually own one of these.
Tuneguru

Cold War Calculators has more, with a focus on nuclear fallout and radiation dosage calculators
Anonymous

A friend of mine was a Marine NBC specialist. He called those a “Whizz-wheel”.

He related a story of his instructor telling him to keep it in his back pocket so should he need one, he could rightly say “he pulled the numbers out of his ass”
fuzzheadgha

I actually saw one of these just the other day at the Kubrick Archives at the London College of Communication. In one scene Dr. Strangelove uses it in that manic way of his when he calculates the scope of destruction.
There were lots of other cool objects there from Kubrick’s personal collection! The archive is definitely worth checking out!
cannibals

I’ve got two Death Wheels – The first is the Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer, Revised Edition that was packaged in the Effects of Nuclear Weapons handbook in the early 80′s. The second is a bigger death wheel that was used to compute target vulnerability for both P and Q type targets, which is a descriptive shorthand for structures that are affected by either blast or overpressure.

I didn’t see the second one on the web site.

I got these back in the early SDI days, when we were trying to figure out exactly what could be done with SDI and we needed to build some simplified exchange models for quick analysis in spreadsheets.
Maggie Leber

#17

Ooooh. Knowing what you’re doing when doing math?

Scary.

(still have my Pickett 10″…and my A.S.A aluminum E6-B, too…)

http://www.sliderule.ca/pin4vf.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E6B
Anonymous

My school had The Effects of Nuclear Weapons with one of these in the back. It is worth noting that there’s a handy lookup table on the back of the computer informing you what the overpressures calculated mean in terms of when lungs are destroyed, and at what velocity rocks and men will be thrown about the place.

A very cheerful book. As an entertaining GCSE Physics experiment we tested with a Geiger counter whether it was more radioactive than background.
OM

…Now, if you can merge one of these with a Rubik’s Cube, you’ve got a winner on your hands! :-)
Anonymous

We had to learn to use a slide rule in Nuclear Engineering because high gamma would cook an electronic calculator, and you had to crunch the numbers to scram the reactor.
EH

Some day, slide rules will inspire an aesthetic similar to what steampunk is doing now.
Anonymous

Of course it’s a slide rule- don’t you know the EMP would render your pocket calculator useless anyway?

And a calculator wouldn’t be as self-explanatory anyway. I know I wouldn’t know how to use the functions of a financial calculator to figure loan rates, interest, payments, etc.
libelle

I had this information in a PalmOS app call EONW that John Oliver adapted from the book. It had UI sliders instead of wheels, and would helpfully tell you in color coded boxes the percent chance of survival for your criteria.

Some time after 9/11, the app vanished from most Palm software sites, although I don’t know there was any correlation between the two events.
franko

for the record, these are called volvelles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvelle
Church

Eagerly awaiting slidepunk.
wordtipping

These are still used to some degree within the Armed Forces for disaster response. I’ve trained with one variety of them or another when plotting fallout, health effects, contamination corridors, etc. They are super handy since they are simple, rugged, and can be easily used when in a sealed haz-mat suit. That was always the biggest hurdle when trying to use a laptop with software solutions, its hard to do with big rubber gloves. In addition to these we also used colored transparent plastic shapes matched to standard map sizes to represent common nuke sizes and wind speeds so we could quickly draw up blast/heat/rad radii and then your corridor. All decidedly low-tech but very effective.
peebz

If you like these check out the stunningly beautiful and geekily wonderful nomograms (e.g., http://myreckonings.com/wordpress/2008/01/09/the-art-of-nomography-i-geometric-design/). A lost art indeed…
peebz

Sorry, link in last post doesn’t work, try this: http://myreckonings.com/wordpress/2008/01/09/the-art-of-nomography-i-geometric-design/
Takuan

these instruments are remarkable in that unlike mathematical/scientific slide rules which MUST answer to an unyielding reality, “nuclear effects” were always deliberately down-rated so as to achieve tactical goals – not save lives. You can’t get troops to march through a fresh mushroom cloud if they know for a fact they are all going to die from it.
wordtipping

These are still used to some degree within the Armed Forces for disaster response. I’ve trained with one variety of them or another when plotting fallout, health effects, contamination corridors, etc. They are super handy since they are simple, rugged, and can be easily used when in a sealed haz-mat suit. That was always the biggest hurdle when trying to use a laptop with software solutions, its hard to do with big rubber gloves. In addition to these we also used colored transparent plastic shapes matched to standard map sizes to represent common nuke sizes and wind speeds so we could quickly draw up blast/heat/rad radii and then your corridor. All decidedly low-tech but very effective.
radlib

Glasstone’s book can be found in many of the 1250 federal depository libraries across the country.
Takuan

someone ask for slidepunk?
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/object_images/535×535/10328277.jpg
Anonymous

Well one admitted problem with these is that the weather can make a big difference. Heavy Clouds will tend to absorb more radiation than clear air. This means less initial radiation, but greater blast effects.
Nur

Sliderules aren’t steampunk – they actually are harder to use. It’s not like putting typewriter keys on your computer’s keyboard. It involves knowing a great deal about what operations you actually perform to do maths.
Anonymous

Interactive versions can be found here:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/bombcalc/
Anonymous

What’s wrong with you guys? Don Lancaster at http://www.tinaja.com still has these for sale, among many other strange things.
And Tinaja is one of the best websites, although his technical assessment of various trends and fads is often a bit more honest than people like.