Homepage of P. Christopher Staecker: Lalanne's Abaque, the Universal Calculator

The Abaque is a nomogram from the 1840s designed by French mathematician Léon Lalanne, who intended it for everyday common use as a "Universal Calculator". You can use it to multiply numbers, plus several other simple operations. I don't know of any high-quality scan of an original 1840s Lalanne manuscript, so I have re-created the Abaque myself.

About

Here is a short video about the Abaque:

Purchase a poster print!

You can order high-quality poster prints from my store at Spreadshop. The poster used in my video was a Spreadshop print in the 24x24 size. The price seems reasonable to me compared to retail poster print shops. If you buy one of these, I will get a few bones.

Download & print your own (free)

These PDFs are meant to be printed on square paper. Lalanne's original was on an area of about 23x23cm. It can be scaled without messing up the mathematics, but some numbers may be hard to read at small scale. My version has a fake antique parchment texture background which looks great with high quality printing, but a blank background might work better for you.

Other stuff