Can Guitar Frets Perform Multiplication?

Charles Petzold explores whether the logarithmic spacing of guitar frets can be used like a slide rule to multiply numbers. He demonstrates a one-octave fretboard that seems to work, but when extended to two octaves, the correspondence breaks down. The article explains the math behind slide rules and why the fretboard analogy is only partially valid, offering an interactive HTML demonstration for readers to test the concept themselves.