This is a slide rule. This one belongs to my wife, I gave mine to my oldest son when he graduated from MIT a couple years ago. Anyway, if you show this to a kid today, he has no idea what it is or what it is used for. What a shame. The kids learn more about touchy feelie crap in high school than they learn about useful things. Education has definitely hit rock bottom for the average kid. Our school district spends more time trying to get kids to pass the Texas graduation requirement tests than actually teaching them useful things. With the exception of the AP courses in the high school, everything is DUMBED DOWN. sad, sad, sad.
A blast from the past! I have a yellow Pickett rule I used in high school (1960s) and a white-on-bamboo K&E rule (and its leather holster) I used in college. Slide rules were useful in school, but only because they were the only thing available; I haven't used one since 1966. Related subject: the first electronic calculator I ever saw was a Fridden machine that was larger than an IBM Selectric typewriter, on display in Seattle in 1963. It was astounding at the time. We've come a long way.
