Division on the Curta. 12 Days of Curtsmas 7

12 Days of Curtsmas Chapter 7: Division
This is a Curta Type I, built in 1952. Stay tuned for episodes every other day, December 3 - 25. Thanks as always to the person who gave me the Curta.
Chapter 11 (December 23) will be a mailbag episode! So please ask questions, etc.
End song inspired by "Hotter than a Molotov" by The Coup. • The Coup: Hotter Than ...
Jingle bells sound from www.freesoundsl..., CC-BY-4.0

[@ChrisStaecker]

There was an audio issue with episode 6, so it got re-uploaded out of sequence. It's here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ol60hHqkj5WdZpIsi=XM-qUKSVWD6j_uBD

[@JeremySpidle]

I love that you describe one tiny little part of the process as a "nuisance" -- as you perform mechanical long division on a long obsolete device - a task the unappreciative would likely call, "onerous."

[@jdmr4815]

The State of Indiana reference was beautiful and made me smile, ty.

[@Salsmachev]

Okay help me out here, I as majorly confused about that. What does Indiana have to do with rational approximations of pi?

[@ChrisStaecker]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill It's often said that this bill legislated that pi = 22/7 in the state of Indiana, but that's not quite true.

[@Salsmachev]

@@ChrisStaecker Ah! Thank you :-) Wow, looks like his approximation of pi was actually 16/5. 22/7 is halfway decent for as simple as it is, so it sounds like people give the guy too much credit.

[@colinstu]

@@Salsmachev thanks! someone asked for me xD thanks for answers too Chris

[@MattMcIrvin]

@@Salsmachev Basically he was a mathematical crank who for some reason thought that getting his incoherent ramblings enacted as state law would win them acceptance--and managed to convince the state House's Education Committee that the state was getting some kind of sweet deal. If I recall correctly, you can derive all sorts of different values of pi from his claims if you try hard enough.

[@pierQRzt180]

haha the "we decide that Pi is 3.2 by law! Take that Archimedes!"

[@LeoStaley]

I can't believe we get 5 more days of this

[@Pallethands]

"If you mess up, no big deal" Words to live by

[@MattMcIrvin]

Some pinwheel calculators also have a feature where the equivalent of the reversing switch is triggered by whether you're adding or subtracting on the first crank after clearing the counter, so you don't have to remember to set it. But I guess having an explicit switch gives you more control.

[@johnsrabe]

I’m sorry, but by this point we’ve moved into the “setting your Casio” territory. 4:06 That leaping bison. Wow. Is that really the state seal? 5:26 Check out the vintage Seiko Bellmatics. This would be a moneymaker for you! The Chrisa Curta DingMod.

[@C.P.Hansen]

About keeping track of digits during multiplication. When doing A times B you can first add A once, then input B-1 and multiply going from the most to the least significant digit in the output. That way each time you shift to the next less significant digit you can see the number of times you have to repeat in that output digit.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Yes- I've seen a similar trick to avoid a back-transfer if you want to multiply the two numbers visible in the answer and counter registers. It sounds like it would work well for somebody who knows what they're doing. I find it pretty confusing.

[@kaisalmon1646]

Merry Christmas, thanks for this series !

[@amartini51]

What happened to chapter 6? Loving this series and don’t want to miss anything.

[@ChrisStaecker]

it's here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ol60hHqkj5WdZpIsi=XM-qUKSVWD6j_uBD

[@amartini51]

Thank you! It doesn’t have a 6 in the title card, so I wasn’t sure if it was part of the series.

[@elanjacobs1]

They swapped the DING for the DOINK

[@ProactiveYellow]

Instead of adding one back, you could in theory use the underflow and alternate subtraction with adding to reduce the number of steps. Sucks it doesn't have a bell though

[@friendsinmyhead2195]

What happened to episode 6?

[@getjaketospace]

Curta

[@BernardManansala]

Have you tried dividing by ZERO with it?

[@ChrisStaecker]

Division is by repeated subtraction, so dividing by zero just subtracts zero over and over.

[@zrobotics]

Been super-enjoying this series all month, thanks for posting it. Was there an issue with episode 6? I didn't see it pop up in recommended, and I don't see it on your channel. Thanks again for posting these!

[@ChrisStaecker]

There was some bad audio so I had to reupload, which I guess messed up something? It's here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ol60hHqkj5WdZpI (or maybe you just didn't recognize the thumbnail)

[@StephenRansom47]

😮 This is going to be a great Playlist for my collection. 😊 🤔 *but Stephen! What if he Never makes a playlist? 🙄 then I’ll make my own… ☝️ chill-lax, would ya.

[@ChrisStaecker]

There is a playlist!

[@StephenRansom47]

@@ChrisStaecker 😌 By the Gods, thank you … 😉 just being a drama queen.