Visual guide on computing square roots on the Curta with a quicker method than Topler's.


If you haven't heard of a Curta before then this video wasn't intended for you-- but I recommend you watch it because you may be entranced by this little mechanical pocket calculator!



I don't know the name of this method, though it may be equivalent to the 'Heron's method'. It comes from a type-writer produced single-page guide that accompanied the Curta when I bought it several years ago. Having been written in 1950s, and also correctly assuming that the educated reader of the time had a greater knowledge of manual calculation than we do now (how unfortunate), I found it difficult to understand and lacking some crucial details. Likewise, I found it difficult to understand existing online text-based instructions.



Therefore I have documented in this video this square root method for the Curta superior to Topler's. Enjoy, and do let me know if you can provide more information on how exactly this method works and what it is called.

свернуть