The History of Mathematical Tables: From Sumer to SpreadsheetsMartin Campbell-Kelly The oldest known mathematical table was found in the ancient Sumerian city of Shuruppag in southern Iraq. Since then, tables have been an important feature of mathematical activity; table making and printed tabular matter are important precursors to modern computing and information processing. This book contains a series of articles summarising the technical, institutional and intellectual history of mathematical tables from earliest times until the late twentieth century. It covers mathematical tables (the most important computing aid for several hundred years until the 1960s), data tables (eg. Census tables), professional tables (eg. insurance tables), and spreadsheets - the most recent tabular innovation. The book is presented in a scholarly yet accessible way, making appropriate use of text boxes and illustrations. Each chapter has a frontispiece featuring a table along with a small illustration of the source where the table was first displayed. Most chapters have sidebars telling a short "story" or history relating to the chapter. The aim of this edited volume is to capture the history of tables through eleven chapters written by subject specialists. The contributors describe the various information processing techniques and artefacts whose unifying concept is "the mathematical table". |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Tables and tabular formatting in Sumer Babylonia and | 19 |
The making of logarithm tables | 49 |
History of actuarial tables | 79 |
de Pronys project for making | 105 |
from Müller to Comrie | 123 |
machines | 145 |
Table making in astronomy | 177 |
The General Register Office and the tabulation | 209 |
British table | 235 |
Table making for the relief of labour | 265 |
The making of astronomical tables in HM | 295 |
The rise and rise of the spreadsheet | 323 |
Biographical notes | 349 |
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Common terms and phrases
acid actuarial annuities Archives astronomical Babbage's Bessel Bessel functions Blanch Briggs Briggs's Bureau calculating machines Cambridge University Library census century Chapter Charles Babbage column Croarken death difference engine digits early edition electronic computers ephemeris equations errors example formulae functions Glaisher Gresham College Gunter History of Computing HMSO interpolation J. W. L. Glaisher James Glaisher L. J. Comrie Laboratory Lagrange London longitude Lotus Lowan lunar Mathematical Tables Committee Mathematical Tables Project mathematicians mechanical Mesopotamia method mortality motion Museum Napier National Nautical Almanac Office navigation Nippur observations orbit Paris perturbations planetary planets position printed production Prony Prony's published Records Report Royal Greenwich Observatory Royal Society Mathematical Scheutz Science scientific sines Society Mathematical Tables spreadsheet statistical stereotyping subtabulation table makers tablets tabular tabulation tangents texts theory tion University Press users values VisiCalc volume
References to this book
Modular Forms: A Classical and Computational Introduction Lloyd James Peter Kilford Limited preview - 2008 |