Short story: people rediscover how to do math and want to put people in bombs

Many years ago I remember reading a short story about an advanced civilization at war that rediscovers how to do math mentally. The reason I remember it is the guy tells it to government officials who are delighted because it means they can put people inside bombs or missiles instead of computers, which were thought to be more valuable.

I believe this is one of those stories I read in a science fiction anthology my father brought home on one of his business trips in the sixties or seventies.

Answer

"The Feeling of Power" by Isaac Asimov has appeared in many anthologies and collections. It was first published in If, February 1958, which is available at the Internet Archive. It was previously identified as the answer to this old question and this one.

In Asimov's story the rediscovered art is called "graphitics":

"On the other hand, a missile with a man or two within, controlling flight by graphitics, would be lighter, more mobile, more intelligent. It would give us a lead that might well mean the margin of victory. Besides which, gentlemen, the exigencies of war compel us to remember one thing. A man is much more dispensable than a computer. Manned missiles could be launched in numbers and under circumstances that no good general would care to undertake as far as computer-directed missiles are concerned—"

Comments

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