Before calculators were cheap and plentiful, people would use mathematical tables —lists of numbers showing the results of calculation with varying arguments— to simplify and drastically speed up computation. Tables of logarithms and trigonometric functions were common in math and science textbooks. Specialized tables were published for applications such as astronomy, celestial navigation and statistics.
Read more about Mathematical Tables: A Simple Example, History and Use
Famous quotes containing the words mathematical and/or tables:
“As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“Eddie Felson: Church of the Good Hustler.
Charlie: Looks more like a morgue to me. Those tables are the slabs they lay the stiffs on.
Eddie Felson: I’ll be alive when I get out, Charlie.”
—Sydney Carroll, U.S. screenwriter, and Robert Rossen. Eddie Felson (Paul Newman)