Mathematical Table, The Macmillan Table Slide Rule
date: label: date made
content: 1931
name: label: maker
content: MacMillan
notes: label: Description
content: John Perry Ballantine (1896–1970), a mathematician on the faculty of the University of Washington, published this set of tables in 1931 as an inexpensive alternative to the slide rule. The paper instrument includes two 8-1/2” x 11” (22.3 cm. x 28 cm) cards which have printed tables on both sides. These are for multiplication, finding powers of numbers, sines, and tangents. Four narrower tables are placed next to these. Two of these are for multiplication, one for division and one for square root. Each of the wider tables has 20 columns of numbers in 100 rows. The narrower ones have ten columns of numbers in ten rows. Tables are based on antilogarithms to base 10. A leaflet of instructions and a paper dust cover are included.
label: Description
content: This example was the property of Oscar W. Richards of the Osborn Zoological Laboratory of Yale University. It is marked with his stamp. A mark on the corner reads: THE MACMILLAN (/) TABLE SLIDE RULE. Another mark there reads: New York (/) THE MACMILLAN COMPANY (/) 1931.
label: Description
content: Ballantine was born in Rahuri, India, the son of a medical missionary and a teacher. He graduated from Harvard in 1918 and then taught briefly at the University of Maine, Pennsylvania State College, and the University of Michigan. He attended graduate school at the University of Chicago, where he met and married fellow graduate student and mathematician Constance Rummons. They both received doctorates from Chicago in 1923. J. P. Ballantine then spent three years teaching at Columbia University before joining the faculty of the University of Washington in 1926. He stayed there, except for a stint in American military schools, until his retirement in 1966.
label: Description
content: Ballantine’s slide rule was reviewed in the <I>Journal of the American Statistical Association</I>, the <I>American Mathematical Monthly</I>, and the British educational journal <I>Mathematical Gazette</I>. It cost only fifty cents, but, as reviewers pointed out, was less portable and less durable than a conventional slide rule. No second edition was required.
label: Description
content: Ballantine did not limit his interest in technical improvement to classroom devices. In 1932, he applied for a patent relating to electric power meters, receiving it in 1935. In 1938, he published the textbook <I>Essentials of Engineering Mathematics</I>. Neither of these projects was particularly influential.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Advertisement, <I>The American Mathematical Monthly</I>, 38 (May 1931), unnumbered page.
label: Description
content: E. J. Atkinson, “The Macmillan Table Slide Rule,” reviewed in <I>The Mathematical Gazette</I>, 16 (May 1932), pp. 140–141.
label: Description
content: Dorothy C. Bacon, “The Macmillan Table Slide Rule,” reviewed in <I>Journal of the American Statistical Association</I>, 26 (Sept 1931), p 373–374.
label: Description
content: J. P. Ballantine, “Multiple-rate Power Metering,” U.S. Patent #2000736, May 7, 1935.
label: Description
content: R. E. Gilman, “The Macmillan Table Slide rule,” reviewed in <I>The American Mathematical Monthly</I>, 39 (May 1932), pp. 295–296.
label: Description
content: J. Green and J. LaDuke, <I>Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: the Pre-1940 PhD’s</I>, Providence: American Mathematical Society, 2009, pp. 131–132.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York City
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Mathematical Charts and Tables
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Oscar W. Richards
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1979.3074.08
label: nonaccession number
content: 1979.3074
label: catalog number
content: 1979.3074.08
objectType: label: Object Name
content: mathematical table
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: .5 cm x 22.5 cm x 28 cm; 3/16 in x 8 27/32 in x 11 1/32 in