1840s "Universal Calculator" Review / HowTo Lalanne's Abaque

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  • Опубликовано: 22 дек 2024

Комментарии • 125

  • @ChrisStaecker
    @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +40

    RUclips isn't displaying my shop links the way I wanted- (I think they take a few days to approve?) So here it is: chris-staecker.myspreadshop.com/

  • @antiphlex
    @antiphlex Год назад +96

    I swear, Chris, you are the undiscovered God's gift to low-key comedy. Brilliant comic timing.

    • @lourias
      @lourias Год назад +2

      True!

    • @dlt4videos
      @dlt4videos Год назад +2

      The dry Humor is the real reason I enjoy this channel, the mechanical calculators are meh. Dr C is the real slim shady!

  • @costakeith9048
    @costakeith9048 Год назад +28

    This is the kind of hard to find archaic computational device I love and your reproduction/translation looks great. Just ordered myself a copy.

  • @Snuffle145
    @Snuffle145 Год назад +3

    "these will work great as gifts if you like explaining why things are funny" 🤣

  • @pierQRzt180
    @pierQRzt180 Год назад +14

    you channel is amazing and criminally underrated. I really like your shop and if you put your charts there is great! (you can do really nice ones!)
    The problem is that the shipping cost to europe are too much, so I really appreciate the raw data for us Europoor so that we can do it ourselves avoiding the shipping cost (and custom costs as well), saving some CO2 too.
    I like everything here, from the math tool review, to the lectures/seminars (that seemingly don't get updated anymore?)
    I wish there would be more of such channels (and I wish more would check your channel).
    edit: ha! I noticed only now that there is a new teaching channel. It should be mentioned every now and then because it is pretty hidden.

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +4

      Thanks so much for the tip! I really appreciate it-

  • @tonyennis1787
    @tonyennis1787 Год назад +3

    9:51 you still see degrees, minutes, and seconds in astronomy and in surveying.

  • @LANless
    @LANless Год назад +6

    Hot damn, love it! Would look really nice under the top of a coffee table, oh yeah, this is the plan.

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +3

      That's a good idea! I gotta get into the furniture business

  • @dlt4videos
    @dlt4videos Год назад +4

    Chris, I want to be the first to congratulate you on reaching the upcoming milestone of 20,000 RUclips subscribers!

  • @WolfWalrus
    @WolfWalrus Год назад +16

    Really cool to see! I love calculating devices that are just really nice and easy-to-use charts.
    Could you do (or have you possibly already done) a video at some point on John Napier's "location arithmetic"? The other major innovation in his "Rabdology" book, where he basically invented binary arithmetic sixty years before Leibniz got there. He included illustrations where he suggested it was done with counters on a chessboard

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +10

      I'm very much into it- I've made a board and I have it hanging on my wall. You'll see it someday soon...

  • @ligius3
    @ligius3 2 месяца назад +1

    We had to use these Smith charts in Uni and was always amazed how one guy managed to fit all that convenient calculation onto a single sheet. Only now do I realize this was much more common back then, before the age of calculators. Still a fascinating chart, one that could put even your most arduous viewers to sleep, when fully explained.

  • @ar_xiv
    @ar_xiv Год назад +6

    Fun fact related to the 12ths of a degree: a typographical Point is 1/72th of an inch, and a Pica is 1/6th of an inch. So 12 point type is (supposed to be) 1 pica or 1/6th of an inch. In a parallel universe somewhere there is a metric system which is base 12.......

    • @IONATVS
      @IONATVS Год назад +3

      or a metric system that’s composite base 60 (alternating base 6 and base 10 digits). So many more nice factors to deal with than pure decimal, meaning much cleaner fractions. Alas, either case would work best if we used those bases for regular computation, not just specific measurements, and we settled on decimal, so the decimal metric we got was kinda inevitable.

    • @IONATVS
      @IONATVS Год назад +1

      @@creamwobbly sexagesimal is my personal favorite base, so yes, I had heard of thirds before. And the much less-useful-for-day-to-day-measurements-of-arc-and-time fourths and fifths as well. “minute” literally means a 1/60th division, and the full name of the unit of a minute of (time/arc) is short for “first minutes (of an hour/degree)” with “seconds” short for “second minutes,” etc.
      Some folks also use the term “jiffy” to describe 1/60 of a second, but that was a later coinage because most people forgot there alternate was a term for that

  • @ChrisStaecker
    @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +40

    “A Nonagon”??? More like A NONINTERESTING VIDEO amirite? 😅😅😅

    • @dundeedideley1773
      @dundeedideley1773 Год назад +11

      An Abacque? More like I want my money aback with the sqrt(10) and pi mixup, Lallane!

    • @MirageGaming1
      @MirageGaming1 Год назад +1

      ​@@dundeedideley1773yeah exactly! A graph? More like a laugh amirite!

  •  Год назад +13

    That looks really cool and must have taken a long time to program in tikz. Ordered the French one.

  • @alanesq1
    @alanesq1 Год назад +4

    Thanks - I am going to keep a copy of the Abaque on my phone from now on, very handy :-)

  • @AngrocSound
    @AngrocSound Год назад +11

    Brilliant!! Thanks as always for making these vids and bringing this stuff to our attention. : - )

  • @AndyLundell
    @AndyLundell Год назад +5

    I like the idea of publicly posted calculation charts.
    Of course, everyone knows towns sometimes have official clock-towers or bells, and I'd heard of publicly placed measurement sticks. But I always assumed those would be used to calibrate other devices. Set your own watch by the town clock-tower. Make your own yardstick by holding a normal stick up to the town yardstick and marking off the units.
    But .... with a math chart, there's no way you'd copy this down onto your own piece of paper. You'd have to actually GO to the town square every time you needed to do some arithmetic.
    I guess it might be handy in the event of a dispute? If you had a contract that depended on the volume of a circle times the density of pewter, you could both go down to the Village Nomogram and figure out once and for all how much money you owe?

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +5

      Yes I imagine the molten pewter salesman could rip you off by making the mark slightly higher (or lower- whatever) on his own chart. So you need a 3rd party trusted “true” chart.

  • @austinerickson8901
    @austinerickson8901 Год назад

    Thanks for keeping calculator history alive or undead!

  • @aleksihermonen9017
    @aleksihermonen9017 Год назад +3

    Whoa, merch! You have given me so much joy and learning that I will happily buy things from you. I recently started playing this mobile game Simple Soroban, which is free and add-free. It's clearly a passion project of someone, and it's really really good. I would love to get shirt/bag/mug with soroban in it, but the ones you sell sadly only include Chinese abacus. So my request is to include soroban version also.
    Also, hopefully you can some day sell actual Napier's bones and Genaille-Lucas rulers too. I have made both of those for myself, but they are far from neat and tidy. Proper ones would be great. For affordable price.
    My current project is to get circular slide rule made somehow. At the moment I have made one by 3d-printing (local library lets me print for free. Gotta love libraries) but it's kinda small. I printed them on paper too and I'm trying to figure out a consistent way of attaching the pieces together.

    • @rlamacraft
      @rlamacraft Год назад +2

      A circular slide rule is something I'd like too. Of all these archaic computing devices, a well made circular slide rule is something that may still have some use when cooking, doing woodwork, and other hobbies

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +3

      I was thinking of making soroban designs, but I figured nobody would care about the distinction. You proved me wrong! Maybe I will make one...

  • @bluegrassengineer
    @bluegrassengineer Год назад +3

    Extraordinary! Well done!

  • @Voshchronos
    @Voshchronos Год назад

    Damn, real impressive that you recreated this with LaTeX. Subscribed!

  • @gary3ward
    @gary3ward Год назад

    I was briefly in Engineer's OCS in 1967. Our individual library tech manuals were loaded with nomagrams.

  • @TheGrinsly
    @TheGrinsly Год назад

    Thought I have but a passing interest in math beyond adding and subtracting fractions as a carpenter, I find your videos very entertaining and educational and best of all funny. Thanks Chris

  • @stokedfool
    @stokedfool Год назад +3

    Very similar style and delivery to John C. Reilly as Ralph from "Wreck-It Ralph" movies. Love it. So entertaining. More please.

  • @N.A._McBee
    @N.A._McBee Год назад +1

    Man, I'm glad having watched it till the very end 😄😅🤣😂

  • @zalibecquerel3463
    @zalibecquerel3463 Год назад +1

    3:40 "Right ON!"

  • @Gunbudder
    @Gunbudder Год назад +6

    9:46 this is not accurate. Any mathematician that works in navigation or guidance and control does use degree, minutes and seconds. we try to work in decimal degrees for the most part (or semicircles which is even better) but you end up working in minutes and seconds or decimal minutes A LOT. its really annoying.

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +4

      I’ve never used the non decimal system in real life, but I don’t do anything applied so it’s not surprising I guess. We’d always use radians anyway.

  • @BillRicker
    @BillRicker Год назад

    Marvelous find, great job.

  • @KaushikShankarOnline
    @KaushikShankarOnline Год назад +5

    As someone who’s done LaTeX with tikz, I wanted to take the time to say thank you for recreating this visually-intricate document and sharing it as well as the code on your website! 🙏🏽

  • @zombifer6833
    @zombifer6833 8 месяцев назад

    I inherited my grandfather's books and his text books from when he was in college in the 40s for drafting were full of charts that looked just like this and we could never figure out what they meant. Now I know, thanks!

  • @jaytalbot1146
    @jaytalbot1146 Год назад +4

    Couldn't one save a lot of space eliminating all the diagonal lines and printing the scales on a few sticks, like you know, rulers, that can slide along one another?

    • @aleksihermonen9017
      @aleksihermonen9017 Год назад +5

      Why would anyone carry those around if you could just have a chart at every street corner?

  • @txikitofandango
    @txikitofandango Год назад +3

    Using an analytical continuation of a multiplication table to multiply integers feels wrong, but I'm getting over it finally

  • @olegtarasovrodionov
    @olegtarasovrodionov Год назад +6

    Automatic subtitles are so smart that pronouncing just "leave a co..." makes "leave a comment"

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +3

      Only you know how long I've been recycling that joke- thanks for still tuning in

  • @alexismorice2387
    @alexismorice2387 Год назад +1

    I'm a french engineering student and in my section calculator are not allowed for exams so we often had all sorts of graph like this specific to the questions, and we still call them "abaque"

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад

      Very interesting! Are they old charts or does somebody still publish them today?

    • @alexismorice2387
      @alexismorice2387 Год назад

      @@ChrisStaecker Hmm no for the most part it just graphed function with different parameters to help to do the math without calculator (made up for the exam) for example a log function or the power of 10/3 (yes we need it for the formula of the lifespan of ball bearings) but we also use more standard ones like the Molier diagram to represent and compute thermodynamics cycles or the abaque de black Nichols in loop control. And we generally call all of these abaques.

  • @Mural
    @Mural Год назад

    Real missing link to you've found here! Very kind of you to provide a vector file

  • @StephenRansom47
    @StephenRansom47 Год назад +2

    😊 … These are really hysterical… Dry as Elwood’s toast, too.
    My congratulations on your Goldilocks Zone- discovered. 😊
    I will be explaining ALL of these jokes to my friends. 😂

  • @txikitofandango
    @txikitofandango Год назад +4

    It's incredible how much work was put into a chart that can't do any better than multiplying two-digit numbers via the traditional long multiplication. EDIT: The conversions and trig calculations are kinda useful I guess

    • @pierQRzt180
      @pierQRzt180 Год назад

      it is not that they had easily better methods at the time.

    • @txikitofandango
      @txikitofandango Год назад +1

      @@pierQRzt180 they didn't have 2-digit multiplication in the 19th century?

  • @marcod53
    @marcod53 Год назад

    That's a tempting poster...

  • @mrdrbernd
    @mrdrbernd Год назад +1

    Thank you for making it available for free.

  • @farpointgamingdirect
    @farpointgamingdirect Год назад

    Interesting device...

  • @LeoStaley
    @LeoStaley Год назад

    It's a more cumbersome, less usable slide rule, decades after the popularization of the slide rule! What a time to be alive!

  • @gobblox38
    @gobblox38 2 месяца назад

    I look forward to this future where I pull out a massive chart and see where two tiny lines intersect. I could finally uninstall the slide rule app on my phone.

  • @Gremriel
    @Gremriel Год назад +2

    Throw you a few bones? Would those be Napier's Bones?

  • @mysss29
    @mysss29 Год назад

    I can even use the Abaque on it! Hell yes! This would make a _beautiful_ poster...

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад

      I just hung mine up at school today- looks good

  • @tonyennis1787
    @tonyennis1787 Год назад +1

    Another great video!

  • @melainekerfaou8418
    @melainekerfaou8418 Год назад +2

    For the record: 'abaque' in French (or at least in my turf of math/physics/engineering) has ceased to mean 'abacus' (for which we have the word 'boulier') and means any old chart with several curves corresponding to a third input parameter, preferably with a fine grid, for use as a professional tool and not just illustration purposes.
    Ergo, colleagues will often miscaption such a chart as an 'abacus' when a document needs to be in English.
    Not sure what role Lalanne (whom I did not know of before your video) played in this semantic shift.
    (PS: I wonder whether the poster ships to France)

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +2

      Very interesting- it seems my 1797 book by Pouchet doesn't use the term "abaque" for his charts. So maybe it was first used by Lalanne? I'm not sure.

    • @melainekerfaou8418
      @melainekerfaou8418 Год назад +2

      @@ChrisStaecker After further research, I have found a paper (Dominique Tournès 'Abaques et Nomogrammes', on hal science - can't paste the link in the comment) where the author states that Lalanne was indeed the first to use 'abaque' to describe such charts
      In French, the new usage could stick since we have 'boulier' for a classical abacus, and apparently 'abaque' was already mostly about more elaborate table-like jigs such as Gerbert's abacus.

  • @just2genders668
    @just2genders668 Год назад

    Glad I found this channel. I think you got your foot in the RUclips algorithm door.

  • @Matilda_the_Hun
    @Matilda_the_Hun Год назад +3

    Hello sir I have an update! I found a copy of 1 million random digits from a university in, of all places, Ankara, Turkey. I mostly use it to choose which show I'm gonna watch before bed

    • @andrewkarminski2860
      @andrewkarminski2860 Год назад

      I remember reading online that someone had approached the publisher to reproduce the numbers in the book. The publisher refused so he produced his own numbers which are available online

    • @aleksihermonen9017
      @aleksihermonen9017 Год назад

      When I was in high school we had this mathematical formula book that was allowed to be used in exams. It had a section for 100 (or something like that) random digits to be used if for any reason you wanted to pick a random number.
      But they weren't random numbers. They were the first 100 (or so) digits of pi. Totally not random numbers.

  • @MrEMeat-kk9tc
    @MrEMeat-kk9tc Год назад +2

    Were he with us today Lalanne would surely print out a vectorized abaque AND purchase a poster from your merch store. He seems like that kind of guy!

  • @Nashvillain10SE
    @Nashvillain10SE Год назад +3

    Where's the link to Chris Staeker's Shop?

    • @Laundry_Hamper
      @Laundry_Hamper Год назад +1

      Hang on, I'm going to have to get around some spam barriers here. It's chris-staecker, then there's a dot. Then this next part, without any spaces or anything: the word "my", the word spread", and then the word "shop". Follow this up with a second dot, and ultimately you close all of this out with the three most common letters that you see at the end of a website thing, like the eponymous boom or bubble.

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +3

      Sorry I thought I could just click a button to turn it on, but I guess it's more complicated. RUclips has to approve my products before they'll display it nicely? See my pinned comment for the link.

    • @Nashvillain10SE
      @Nashvillain10SE Год назад +1

      @@ChrisStaecker YAY!!! Got it! Thanks!

  • @tajmahalfred
    @tajmahalfred 11 месяцев назад

    I bought one! It's terrific; if you're on the fence...let's be real, just do it. I only wish it were on matte paper. It came the same day as my combination Addiator/slide rule. Different seller.

    • @tajmahalfred
      @tajmahalfred 11 месяцев назад

      How does my iPhone not have "Addiator" in its vocabulary? Adriatic? What?

  • @nunyabiznes33
    @nunyabiznes33 Год назад +2

    I'm too poor to support you so I can only throw you a Napier bone.
    And I think it's nice you're actually turning these analog calculators into merch.

  • @theastuteangler
    @theastuteangler Год назад +2

    1:24 five multiplied by sixty is thirty.
    Honey, we're gonna be rich!

  • @davidegaruti2582
    @davidegaruti2582 Год назад +2

    Ok this is kinda perfect for my worldbuilding project in wich pepole choose to make everything into a public good : public transit , public eating places , teaters , large sundials placed everywhere to allow the common man to know what time it is whilr using minimal power ,
    And this would be pretty good for their ends : i can see these posters being printed around town with indications to the nearest one to allow everyone do easily do math

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +3

      Nice- it’s a very weird kind of steampunk. Chartpunk!

    • @Laundry_Hamper
      @Laundry_Hamper Год назад +2

      It's a good candidate for acid etching into a sheet of stainless!

    • @davidegaruti2582
      @davidegaruti2582 7 месяцев назад

      @@ChrisStaecker oh yeah lol , they'd have a decent whaling industry and sail ships , as well as phones ...
      they are steampunk enough i think XD

  • @timetraveller6643
    @timetraveller6643 Год назад +1

    I need a Gunter's Scale . And a Sector too.

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +3

      Yes I've had my eyes on those for some time. I have a sector but not a gunter. Although I could just break off the bottom of a slide rule...

    • @timetraveller6643
      @timetraveller6643 Год назад +3

      @@ChrisStaecker -- There were big scales for ship captains that could lay out Mercator projections and the parts of a circle and a thousand other lines for myriad draughting functions. I had an old book and lost it. It had geometric constructions to produce every line.

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +1

      I’m interested!

  • @Dan_Campbell
    @Dan_Campbell Год назад

    No way man, the chart is too expensive.
    Wait a minute, I just realized I could have bought the chart for the same price as this Thanks! donation.
    Damn.

  • @MordecaiV
    @MordecaiV Год назад +2

    mathematicians don't use minutes and seconds much, but it's still alive in Astronomy!

  • @hughobyrne2588
    @hughobyrne2588 Год назад +3

    A nomagon on a nonogram... a monagon on a nogonam... a nonagron on a nomogam... am I getting close? ... a monogon on...

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +3

      That joke was right there! Not sure how it never occurred to me.

  • @Rosseloh
    @Rosseloh Год назад +3

    I'm also going to leave a com-

  • @joehopfield
    @joehopfield 5 месяцев назад

    Astronomers and geographers still divide degrees into "minutes" and "seconds". JWST's various instruments have fields-of-view specified in arc-seconds, and the gps in your pocket can give you lat-long in degrees,minutes,seconds... :-D

  • @michielboland628
    @michielboland628 Год назад

    For one blissful second I thought you were selling an actual CURTA.

  • @tombackhouse9121
    @tombackhouse9121 Год назад

    Mathematicians might not use the sexagesimal system, but astronomers and navigators do. I suppose arc-seconds are as convenient a unit as any if you're looking at things which are a thousandth of a degree across, and navigators tend to use arc minutes and then divide further into tenths because by a strange coincidence, one arc minute around the circumference of the earth is exactly one nautical mile...

  • @randy-y1q
    @randy-y1q 9 месяцев назад

    I am taken Abaque.

  • @OldManBOMBIN
    @OldManBOMBIN Год назад

    Omg I finally figured it out. You remind me of Babycakes. Your voice and mannerisms are like a Brad Neely character.

  • @DavidvanDeijk
    @DavidvanDeijk Год назад +3

    pocketsizes for male clothing must have been absurd in those days

  • @ralhmcc47
    @ralhmcc47 Год назад

    Sir, is there somewhere I may purchase one?

  • @elcidleon6500
    @elcidleon6500 6 месяцев назад

    Do you know what happened to your webarea?
    It looks like it's dead.

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  6 месяцев назад +1

      I just moved my office a couple of weeks ago and everything went down! I needed to update some links- should be working now!

    • @elcidleon6500
      @elcidleon6500 6 месяцев назад

      @@ChrisStaecker - Thanks for the notification.
      I assumed that something went wrong, and notify the situation.

  • @DrBovdin
    @DrBovdin Год назад

    I now feel a sudden urge to start calling my phone, pad, and laptop my “crystal abaques” (after all, they do use fancy doped crystals to do maths to let me watch you).

  • @Kamal_AL-Hinai
    @Kamal_AL-Hinai 2 месяца назад

    How can someone even THINK of this invention. They definitely were made different back then. 100%.

  • @alexkuhn5078
    @alexkuhn5078 Год назад

    you had me at molten zinc

  • @3_pancakes767
    @3_pancakes767 Месяц назад +1

    Ah yes, 5×60=30 1:27

  • @seonbin2
    @seonbin2 Год назад

    I can even upvote

  • @CheaddakerT.Snodgrass
    @CheaddakerT.Snodgrass Год назад

    Really cool!
    However..... I think the Abacus shirt has a grammar error.
    Maybe you can sell a sticker to cover it up. Or an sticker. 😂
    I could be wrong but a quick google search says I'm correct.
    EDIT: I suspect the graphic on the shirt is just an overlay on a picture of a blank shirt that has a typo, so if one was ordered they may very well print the correct thing

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад

      You mean “a abacus” vs “an abacus”? You’re probably right. I made some code to combine all the different text elements with all my different pictures. So they all got “a”. It works if you say “a suanpan”!

    • @CheaddakerT.Snodgrass
      @CheaddakerT.Snodgrass Год назад

      Yes the shirt if ordered may say A Abacus which would be incorrect. The description to the right says an Abacus (in this video)
      Never in my life have I said suanpan.
      Apparently if the word after starts with a vowel sound it should be "an" if it starts with consonant sound it would be "a"
      I'm a grammar weirdo and this an vs a has always interested me.

    • @hendrikd2113
      @hendrikd2113 Год назад

      @@ChrisStaecker I thought that was the joke. "a bacus".

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад

      In my head the joke is much stupider than that- I just think it sounds funny to say “a abacus”. Kinda like ruclips.net/user/shorts1XvnCFvZOlw

  • @colinstu
    @colinstu Год назад +1

    Z lister

  • @biquinary
    @biquinary Год назад +5

    Nonagon?? More like NONE O THESE VIDEOS GON DISAPPOINT amirite? 😅😅😅

  • @zaquery8
    @zaquery8 Год назад +1

    “Z-list RUclipsr” with A-list content

  • @Laundry_Hamper
    @Laundry_Hamper Год назад +3

    Hey everyone get a load of Gutenberg over here

    • @Laundry_Hamper
      @Laundry_Hamper Год назад +1

      BTW I think you should link the Spreadshop page in more places. Like the description of the video! And your /about text! I understand it not being on the landing page of your uni website, but that means it should be absolutely everywhere else

    • @ChrisStaecker
      @ChrisStaecker  Год назад +1

      Yeah sorry I’m working on it

    • @Laundry_Hamper
      @Laundry_Hamper Год назад

      @@ChrisStaecker A victim of your own prodigious success