{"id":1183,"date":"2010-10-15T15:19:42","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T19:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=1183"},"modified":"2017-07-31T15:25:57","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T19:25:57","slug":"slide-rules-supercomputers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2010\/10\/slide-rules-supercomputers\/","title":{"rendered":"From Slide Rules to Supercomputers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sliderule1\"<\/a>When Paul Flynn ’48, MS ’50, started his engineering education at Johns Hopkins in July 1944, he came equipped with a slide rule-and little else. “We didn’t have computers,” says the Baltimore native. “As for simple calculations, we did those in our head.”<\/p>\n

Flynn started at Homewood near the end of WorldWar II, when academic calendars ran year-round to prepare men as quickly as possible for the armed forces. Student life was Spartan. Students’ tools were minimal.<\/p>\n

Today, the typical Homewood student is wired for success. But for some, there remains a fondness for putting pencil to paper and calculating equations in their heads. “I have a whole drawer of sliderules,” says the Whiting School’s vice dean for education Ed Scheinerman, who trots them out occasionally as a curiosity for undergrads. “I was right on the cusp. In high school, I used a slide rule for my chemistry class. The next year, in physics, I had a calculator.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a whole drawer of slide rules.\u201d \u2014Ed Scheinerman, vice dean for education, who occasionally shares his collection as a curiosity for undergrads.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Nancy Kelley, mother of freshman engineering student Eric Kelley, the “must-have” tool of her collegiate years was quite a bit heavier. “I received a Royal electric typewriter (complete with hard carrying case) as a high school graduation gift,” she recalls. “It weighed probably 30 pounds.” When her son arrived on campus for move-in day this fall, he brought a laptop, cell phone, and Xbox 360 gaming system. His roommate contributed the requisite flat screen television.<\/p>\n

Stephen Kaminski ’97 remembers arriving with a graphing calculator and desktop computer, which he used to type lab reports and to do his Fortran homework. “I didn’t use the Internet once while I was at Hopkins,” Kaminski recalls. And phone calls? They were made from the landline in his dorm. When he applied to law school, he typed all 13 of his applications-one a day for nearly two weeks.<\/p>\n

There’s no doubt that today’s Hopkins students are wired, or rather, wireless. Consider their computers: “A desktop?” asks MouhamedAlkaysi, a resident assistant and civil engineering major. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with a desktop.” His fellow RA Christopher Pastrana confirms: “I don’t think I’ve ever met a person without a laptop.”<\/p>\n

Today’s essentials: LCD televisions, with screens as big as 42 inches; tiny iPods that pack thousands of songs; standard cell phones; and smart phones such as the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android. But such phones aren’t used for calling. “It’s all texting,” says Alkaysi.<\/p>\n

In the classroom, Scheinerman says, technology provides enormous opportunity. There’s no way to attack today’s complicated engineering problems without high-powered computing power.<\/p>\n

There may be a downside, though-the loss of intrinsic understanding that comes from visualizing and physically solving problems with pen and pencil. “Today you plug equations into a computer and these graphs appear automatically-beautifully,” Scheinerman says. “The graphs are better than what you can do by hand. But what you gain in speed, you may lose in intuition.”<\/p>\n

Still, he has no intention of turning back. “Sure you can design an airplane using only a slide rule,” Scheinerman says. “But you can design a much better one, a much more fuel-efficient one, with extensive computational modeling.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Alumni shares stories about using everything from slide rules to super-fast computers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currents","issue-fall-2010"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Slide Rules to Supercomputers - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2010\/10\/slide-rules-supercomputers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Slide Rules to Supercomputers - JHU Engineering Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"FROM THE ARCHIVES: Alumni shares stories about using everything from slide rules to super-fast computers.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2010\/10\/slide-rules-supercomputers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"JHU Engineering Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-15T19:19:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-07-31T19:25:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sliderule1-291x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Abby Lattes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Abby Lattes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/slide-rules-supercomputers\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/slide-rules-supercomputers\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Abby Lattes\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0244393be370fbc3ead8ec26062e9742\"},\"headline\":\"From Slide Rules to Supercomputers\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-10-15T19:19:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-07-31T19:25:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/slide-rules-supercomputers\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":551,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/slide-rules-supercomputers\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2014\\\/07\\\/sliderule1-291x300.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Currents\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/slide-rules-supercomputers\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/slide-rules-supercomputers\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/slide-rules-supercomputers\\\/\",\"name\":\"From Slide Rules to Supercomputers - 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