ABSTRACT
Introduction In the summer of 1821, an English mathematician named Charles Babbage was working with his friend, the astronomer John Herschel, to create a book of mathematical tables. Before computers and calculators were available, people who needed to solve mathematical equations would find the value of a function by searching a table in a reference book like the one shown in Figure 1.1. These books were essential for navigators, architects, merchants, bankers, and anyone else who used math in their profession. There were tables for interest rates, currency conversion, liquid and dry measures, and just about any other quantity that could be expressed with numbers. Not surprisingly, there was a strong demand for accurate tables, and a tremendous amount of time and effort went into creating and checking values printed in reference books.
