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G2: Notes and Queries: Where would we be without log tables?(Guardian (UK) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Where would we be without the logarithm tables of John Napier in Edinburgh, which celebrate their 400th anniversary this year? It helps to understand what logarithms do from a computational standpoint. In essence, they let us take really big numbers (or really small numbers) and make them more manageable. What did we ever get out of them? Loads of things, as in the work of Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), who did a lot of important work on the orbits of the planets - again, big numbers that needed calculating, with no computers. But a really big one was the first moon landing in 1969: we're talking about huge distances and figures that need to be precise, or else Neil Armstrong would have turned into Major Tom. In fact, when dealing with anything planetary or astronomical, logs still get used quite a bit. ShanklysGhost (c) 2014 Guardian Newspapers Limited. |