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On a Table for the Formation of Logarithms and Anti-Logarithms to Twelve Places

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

Peter Gray*
Affiliation:
Institute of Actuaries

Extract

With the exception of the publication on a more limited scale (and which will be hereafter referred to), of that which is now to be developed, there exists at present no ready and practical method of forming to more than seven places the logarithms of numbers of more than seven or eight figures. The great extent of the tables requisite, if formed on the plan of our present seven-figure tables, is not only likely ever to prove a bar to their construction, but it would also render them too cumbrous, if constructed, to be easily and readily used. In the present method, the end in view is sought to be attained in another way. The principle of the method is the resolution of the number whose logarithm is required, by a direct and easy process, into factors of a peculiar form, the logarithms of which, to the requisite extent, admit of easy tabulation. The logarithms of the factors, then, being taken from the table, their sum is the logarithm of the given number.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1866

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References

page 76 note * Certainly more than this cannot be said of the results of the common seven-figure tables, when interpolation is used.

page 87 note * It is hardly necessary to mention that to obtain this product true to the lastfigure, it is requisite to use log 9 to about twenty–three places. I take it to this extent from Callet.

page 88 note * The foregoing example was proposed by the late Mr, Frend, who succeeded, by considerations independent of the theory of logarithms, in assigning a portion of the required number.