EE "Doc" Smith's SF can be amusing to read today, because they're zooming around the universe in FTL spaceships with coruscating destructive rays powered by bus bars the size of office buildings back on earth, and every time a rakish commander needs confirmation on a hunch, one of his engineers spends a few seconds with the "slip stick" (how did you think they navigated?) and reports back, yes, it checks out to 10 decimal places...