# Any SF stories have FTL spaceship navigation being done with a slide rule? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 21, 2004, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sf-stories-have-ftl-spaceship-navigation-being-done-with-a-slide-rule/235533 "2004-03-21T07:51:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Balduran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cc9497/32.png) [@Balduran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balduran)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2004, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sf-stories-have-ftl-spaceship-navigation-being-done-with-a-slide-rule/235533/21 "2004-03-23T19:48:07Z")
James Blish’s **Cities in Flight** series. Most of the cities of Earth left for space, with these huge FTL engines called spindizzies attached. All calculations were done with slide rule. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2004, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sf-stories-have-ftl-spaceship-navigation-being-done-with-a-slide-rule/235533/22 "2004-03-23T20:52:26Z")
There is a cover story from Astounding from about 1953, with a slide rule over a starship as the cover art. The story itself concerns the starship engineers efforts to create a perfect square wave for some reason. I think the title is Starship Engineers or something. I will post full details tonight when I get home, I have this one. It is the epitome of the engineering based Astounding story. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sf-stories-have-ftl-spaceship-navigation-being-done-with-a-slide-rule/235533/23 "2004-03-24T02:47:27Z")
> [@](#): > > I think I have posted this before, but there is a moment in one of the Lensman series where they have to read thru a gigantic, planet-sized database to find the galaxy’s top scientists to develop a new weapon (the sunbeam, IIRC). How pathetically nerdy would it be if I remembered off the top of my head that that was for the negasphere, not the sunbeam? Not, of course, that I actually do remember, just hypothetically. It was kinda cool, though, that the Kinnison men had a ten-centicredit bet riding on it. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sf-stories-have-ftl-spaceship-navigation-being-done-with-a-slide-rule/235533/24 "2004-03-24T03:41:03Z")
Would anybody be interested to know that this is true for navigation IRL? The U.S. Navy supplements its linked navigational systems and radars with sailors working contact and wind problems on maneuvering boards with dividers. Contacts also are manually plotted on a dead reckoning trace, which is a comparatively low-tech piece of gear that has been in use since at least the 1960’s. Obtaining certain solutions the old fashioned way is much more accurate, amazingly enough. The Navy also has access to electronic charts, but prefers to use paper charts for shipboard navigation because they are easier to update. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sf-stories-have-ftl-spaceship-navigation-being-done-with-a-slide-rule/235533/25 "2004-03-24T04:00:46Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > How pathetically nerdy would it be if I remembered off the top of my head that that was for the negasphere, not the sunbeam? Not, of course, that I actually do remember, just hypothetically. > > It was kinda cool, though, that the Kinnison men had a ten-centicredit bet riding on it. Wasn’t that the one where Kinnison was embarassed to find that he, Worsel and Tregonsee were all off the charts in IQ, “with no corresponding emotional instablity” - unclassifiable, so the steno used an abbreviation like “HPT” - “High Powered Thinkers”? (And if I’ve got this right, I’m really starting to worry what important stuff I’ve forgotten to keep this in the ol’memory bank… :rolleyes: ) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sf-stories-have-ftl-spaceship-navigation-being-done-with-a-slide-rule/235533/26 "2004-03-24T04:09:03Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > There are a couple of Asimov stories in which it’s mentioned that before a starship can make an interstellar “jump”, the pilot has to do a lot of complex mathematics and check various reference guides to get the course right, lest the ship come out in the middle of a star. Though I can’t recall whether he SPECIFICALLY mentioned slide rules being used for these calculations, I can’t imagine that these pilots did ALL the work by hand. From _Foundation and Empire_, c. 21, “Interlude in Space”: > [@](#): > > With charts limited in scope, and an experience not at all fully developed, either operationally or mathematically, Toran resigned himself to days of careful plotting between jumps. > > It became a community project of a sort. Ebling Mis checked Toran’s mathematics and Bayta tested possible routes, by the various generalised methods, for the presence of real solutions. Even Magnifico was put to work on the **calculating machine for routine computations,** a type of work, which, once explained, was a source of great amusement to him and at which he was surprisingly proficient. So it’s not a slide rule, but it does indicate that the machine would only be used for the “routine calculations”. It wasn’t a computer as we understand it, which suggests to me that the real hard number crunching was done by the pilot, Toran. ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sf-stories-have-ftl-spaceship-navigation-being-done-with-a-slide-rule/235533/27 "2004-03-24T04:19:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > How pathetically nerdy would it be if I remembered off the top of my head that that was for the negasphere, not the sunbeam? Not, of course, that I actually do remember, just hypothetically. > > It was kinda cool, though, that the Kinnison men had a ten-centicredit bet riding on it. You can remove yourself from the “pathetically nerdy” list, since–while you are correct about the negasphere (Gray Lensman, Chapter 8: “Cateagles”)–you’re wrong about the bet. The dime bet was about the search for Kalonia (Children of the Lens, Chapter 14: “Kinnison-Thyron, Drug Runner”). I was, however, unable to find any reference to using a slide rule during navigation, which I expected in the “Dei Ex Machina” chapter of Gray Lensman. And **Piper** , it was only Kinnison and Worsel who were H.T.T.'s (High Tension Thinkers). > [@](#): > > Class XIX–Unclassifiable at present…lack of adequate methods…minds of range and scope far beyond any available indices…Ratings above high genius (750)…yet no instability…power beyond any heretofore known…assigned ratings tenative and definitely minimum. > He then read the cards. > “Worsel, Velantia, eight hundred.” > And: > “Kimball Kinnison, Tellus, eight hundred seventy-five.” Of course, **Qadgop** should be along shortly to set us all straight. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sf-stories-have-ftl-spaceship-navigation-being-done-with-a-slide-rule/235533/28 "2004-03-24T05:52:09Z")
If anyone cares, here is the story I mentioned. It is called “Galactic Gadgeteers,” by Harry Stine, and it is in Astounding, May 1951. The cover, on a black background, has half a head, a bunch of vacuum tubes, a spaceship, and a slide rule. Looking through the story I can’t find any slide rules, but I think this counts. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sf-stories-have-ftl-spaceship-navigation-being-done-with-a-slide-rule/235533/29 "2004-03-24T11:34:29Z")
There was an Arthur C. Clarke story in which the computers of a spacecraft went down and they basically used slide rules and an abacus to calculate when they needed to apply thrust, etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sf-stories-have-ftl-spaceship-navigation-being-done-with-a-slide-rule/235533.md?page=1)