alt Hacker NewsWhat Is a Nomogram and Why Would It Interest Me?
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If you like things like this I can recommend you check out the Chris Staecker youtube channel. He covers all sorts of tools people used to use to do math before computers and calculators, and there are a lot of them. Some of the things people came up with to do what today would be considered relatively simple math are pretty clever, pretty complex, or both.
Here’s an old python program to make pdf nomograms from almost any formula. The example of payment for a loan is one of my favorites.
The Smith chart is the electrical engineer's favorite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_chart
You either love it or hate it, depending on how well your electromagnetics class was taught.
I am fascinated with nomograms ever since I stumbled upon them.
I spent some time earlier this year creating one for two resistors in parallel. I had seen it in an old book [1] but it was of poor quality.
(I tried to get Gemini writing to write code to generate an SVG file—but it was pretty poor compared to the one that I had done by hand in Affinity Designer.)
[1] https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/T...
video explaining what a Nomogram is and how to make them by hand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCd9hANNLsw
So far my children have not yet had to repeatedly perform complicated calculations, but I look forward to the day. I will definitely teach them with nomograms before we go on to spreadsheets!
Another type of almost-nomogram that's great and practical is the slide rule. In particular in the kitchen, where it makes it really easy to translate proportions. https://entropicthoughts.com/kitchen-slide-rule
Also those who want to quit doing drugs should have one.
The US Navy still uses nomograms for chemistry control on nuclear reactors!
There's an old paper about the mathematics of nomograms that I found interested when I stumbled across it: https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-8708(65)90042-3
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I think the Numogram is more interesting, highly relevant today due to AI happenings
Seriously, though, there's one nomogram you (yes you) should know about and have it well-enough engraved in your mind's eye that you can use it with eyes closed. A nomogram for Bayes' theorem: https://www.ovid.com/journals/nejm/abstract/10.1056/nejm1975...