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'Calculators Killed the Standard Statistical Table' (sas.com)
theodp writes: In an obituary of sorts for the standard probability tables that were once ubiquitous in introductory statistics textbooks, Rick Wicklin writes: "In my first probability and statistics course, I constantly referenced the 23 statistical tables (which occupied 44 pages!) in the appendix of my undergraduate textbook. Any time I needed to compute a probability or test a hypothesis, I would flip to a table of probabilities for the normal, t, chi-square, or F distribution and use it to compute a probability (area) or quantile (critical value). If the value I needed wasn't tabulated, I had to manually perform linear interpolation from two tabulated values. I had no choice: my calculator did not have support for these advanced functions. In contrast, kids today have it easy! When my son took AP statistics in high school, his handheld calculator (a TI-84, which costs about $100) could compute the PDF, CDF, and quantiles of all the important probability distributions. Consequently, his textbook did not include an appendix of statistical tables."
I was in one of the last years my high school taught to use sliderules. Fancy ones already had trig scales. Didn't need the trig tables anymore.
I just don't see this as a problem. At some point, you have to consider whether NOT walking to school in 12 feet of snow up hill both ways somehow contributed to a better education that allows us to do the amazing things we do these days. Some things simply harder, without being better.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
...is TI-84s still cost $100.
There used to be books of nothing but tables of logarithms and other mathematical tables, like trig functions. You used them when you needed more significant places in your answer than a slide rule could give you. I still have the one my dad used in college. They don't make those any more.
Slide rules, log tables, trig tables, knowledge on how to interpolate for intermediate values in those tables. In fact, much of the non-pictorial content in the math version of the CRC. Then graphing calculators killed off that part too. All that, and the monumental amount of work that it once took to compute those tables by hand, with occasional errors, before computing devices did them. One thing I don't lament is that those tables typically listed function values to a set number of decimal places, not significant figures. Or hauling around those big books.
First. World. Problems: We no longer waste paper to print archaic Mathematical tables /sarcasm OH NOES!
You know what else is "dead" ?
* Slide rule
* Tables of common Logarithms
* Tables of Trigonometric functions
Guess what, nobody is stopping you from buying those tables from old CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics which have them.
Apparently you didn't get the memo that a cheap calculator is "good enough."
What's next?
Whining that we don't have rotary telephones? Black and White televisions?
Now we're getting to the point where: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Yes they do. Stegun and Abramowitz ("Handbook of Mathematical Functions," Dover Books, originally NIST) is what I use and it's still in print. Cost is about $30 from Amazon. If you want tables of integrals, Gradshtyen and Ryzhik is also available, but I can't tell if it's still being printed or that's just new-old-stock copies they're selling. Cover is the same as my 25-year-old copy.
-JS
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...
Just a few days ago I was watching an old documentary which stated that the impetus for Charles Babbage creating the Difference Engine was his frustration with dealing with inaccurate mathmatical tables. I was skeptical of this claim, but at least Wikipedia backs it up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
They still do.
CRC Handbook of Standard Mathematical Tables
https://www.amazon.com/Standar...
'Calculators Killed the Standard Statistical Table'
That's the name of my favorite Buggles song!
I think.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
If and when that happens, the world would have far greater problems than dealing w/ multiplication or trigonometry. Going from an electrified society to one where the day lasts only as long as one can see is asking for major adjustments
Yes and no. The survivors will initially have more to worry about than computing a sinc value of finding a F value, but if they want to rebuild to a technological civilization these tables will be amongst the most valuable artefacts on the planet. The ability to do complex calculations will cut decades off the recovery time for getting out technology back.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
Chalk on buffalos? Pure luxury. Back when I learnt maths buffalo hadn't evolved and sedimentary rock hadn't yet formed. We used to use write in the ash from an erupting volcano while dodging their lava flows and running Fortran code in our heads and, if we were lucky, the volcano would explode and kill us all before the calculation was done.
....but you tell that to kids nowadays and they just don't believe you!