Abstract
THIS is a book which ought to make even the ordinary reader appreciate the perennial freshness of mathematics. The method of “Nomography” (X3 of the international catalogue), recent as it is in its more important developments, is based upon a very simple idea which has long been familiar—that of the indexed scale. The ever–recurring problem of applied mathematics is to calculate an unknown numerical quantity from its relation to other quantities that are known. The simplest case is when two quantities x,y are connected by a relation f(x,y)=0 or y=ф (x). For practical purposes it is convenient to have a permanent record of a large number of corresponding values of x and y so that for any given value of x the approximate value of y may be at once found or obtained by simple interpolation. Three methods are available: the first is that of a numerical table, such as a table of logarithms; the second that of the graph, for instance the curve f(x, y)=0 or y=ф(x) referred to rectangular coordinates; the third is that of the indexed scale, that is to say a straight line or curve at different points of which the corresponding values of x and y are shown in figures. A familiar example is given by a thermometer with Centigrade and Fahrenheit readings, or by a measuring tape with centimetres marked along one edge and inches along the other.
Traité de Nomographie.
Par Maurice d'Ocagne. Pp. xiv + 480. (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1899.)
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M., G. Traité de Nomographie. Nature 60, 363 (1899). https://doi.org/10.1038/060363a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/060363a0
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