The History of Mathematical Tables
From Sumer to Spreadsheets
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Product details:
- Edition number 1
- Publisher OUP Oxford
- Date of Publication 2 October 2003
- ISBN 9780198508410
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages372 pages
- Size 235x156x19 mm
- Weight 792 g
- Language English
- Illustrations numerous halftones and figures 0
Categories
Short description:
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 and are important precursors to modern computing and information processing. This book contains a series of articles summarising the history of mathematical tables from earliest times until the late twentieth century.
MoreLong description:
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".
The book itself is the fruit of a very good idea of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, which was to have a conference and then a book on the theme of mathematical tables, and the editors are to be congratulated on a handsome volume on the social history of mathematics.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Table and tabular formatting in Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria, 2500 BCE - 50 CE
The making of logarithm tables
The computation factory: de Prony's project for making tables in the 1790's
Difference engines: from Muller to Comrie
The 'unerring certainty of mechanical agency': machines and table making in the nineteenth century
Table making in astronomy
The General Registry Office and the tabulation of data, 1837 - 1939
Table making by committee; British table maker 1871 - 1965
Table making for the relief of labour
The making of astronomical tables in H.M. Nautical Almanac Office
The rise and rise of the spreadsheet
Biographical Notes
