Someone's Trash is Our Treasure
The Collector as a Preserver of Material Culture
Nicola Marras Manfredi and Wolfgang Irler have organized the 22th Oughtred Society International Meeting.
The Oughtred Society International Meeting event took place September 16th - 18th, 2016 at the MUSE Science Museum in Trent, Italy.
Many mathematical devices and slide rule were displayed for this IM 16, International Meeting of Collectors of Historical Calculating Instruments.
The theme for the 22th IM 16 of the Oughtred Society takes its inspiration from the comparison of extinct species to the extinct technology of mechanical calculating devices. We want reconsidering these historical calculation-related artifacts, putting the main emphasis, not on the achievements of past technology, but on the "material culture", taking into account the historical context that makes these artifacts worthy to be collected, analyzed, and used to explain its evolution.
Consequently, the actual collector may be considered as having equal rights to a paleontologist who digs for fossil remains or an archaeologist who searches for human artifacts, rummaging in forgotten cellars and flea-markets. What someone had thrown away became the collector's treasure.
The videos of the Oughtred Society IM 2016 (Jorge Fabregas - ARC)
Download the IM16 Proceedings, inside you will find:
- Cesare Baj - Forty years of activity of an Italian slide rule designer
- Cesare Baj - Babylonean logarithms
- Andrea Celli - Some particular Italian Slide Rules
- Andries de Man - Correlation machines
- Josè Fernandez - The IGN Logarithmic Circle - Studying a Masterpiece
- Stefan Heimann - Slides Rules for the use in Civil Hydraulic Engineering
- Wolfgang Irler - About the Polish G.Gerlach seller of technical instruments
- Klaus Kèhn - Collectanea de Logarithmis
- Timo Leipala - Armand Hammer and Russian slide rules
- Nicola Marras - Our Treasure is a World Treasure
- Nicola Marras - Too weak To Survive
- David Rance - The Lost scales of Unknown Riches
- Andrea Ruggeri - Paolo Ballada de Saint Robert and His Hypsologista
- Marc Thomas - From a Slide Rule Collection to a Ph.D. Thesis
A thank to the editors of the IM16 Proceedings. Editing a text it is a long process, time-consuming and unpaid. Without the help of David and Donna Sweetman, Jerry McCarthy and Mark McCormick, we would not have published anything!
MUSE: a center for relationship between nature and man
The Oughtred Society
The Oughtred Society was founded in 1991 by a group of slide rule collectors and is dedicated to the preservation and history of slide rules and other calculating instruments. Over the past three decades it has evolved to an international organization with members in 20 countries.
The Society is a non-profit educational organization. Society goals include the dissemination and sharing of information and encouragement for collectors. We are affiliated with organizations in the United Kingdom, Germany, The Netherlands and Italy. Our activities are carried out by members who volunteer to do various tasks and projects. Membership is open to anyone.
The Journal of the Oughtred Society, published twice annually, is available only to members of The Oughtred Society. This internationally acclaimed journal is the most authoritative source on slide rules and other calculating devices.
These informations come from the Oughtred Society official website.
Interesting link: ARC - Reglas de Calculo.
© 2016 Nicola Marras Manfredi
