Re: How Were Those Tables Computed?

In article <1125294910.156786.232960@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
qquito <qquito@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Dear All:
>
>Before the computer/calculator age, people used trigonometric,
>logarithmic tables. For instance, to find out sin(38.52 deg)=?, you had
>to use such a table. There were of courses tables of many other
>functions. And there were slide rules to use, but the precision was
>low. The logarithmic table, on the other hand, could provide 7 digits
>after the decimal points.
>
>Now the questions: (1) What formulas were used for the computation of
>the values in those tables? (2) Were the computation done manually by
>some hard-working mathematicians? Or by some adding machine?

See e.g.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generating_trigonometric_tables>
<http://www.philsoc.org/2001Spring/2132transcript.html>
<http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/85.707573>
<http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/85.887989>

Robert Israel israel@xxxxxxxxxxx
Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel
University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: How Were Those Tables Computed?
    ... >>Before the computer/calculator age, people used trigonometric, ... And there were slide rules to use, but the precision was ... The logarithmic table, on the other hand, could provide 7 digits ... >>some hard-working mathematicians? ...
    (sci.math)
  • How Were Those Tables Computed?
    ... Before the computer/calculator age, people used trigonometric, ... There were of courses tables of many other ... The logarithmic table, on the other hand, could provide 7 digits ... some hard-working mathematicians? ...
    (sci.math)
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