Book, Logarithmic and Trigonometric Tables to Five Places

This paperback book is part of the College Outline Series published by Barnes & Noble. It contains five-place tables of the common logarithms of numbers and of logarithms of sines, cosines, tangents and cotangents for every second of arc. There is also a shorter table of natural trigonometric functions from minute to minute. Further short tables assist in conversion from common logarithms to natural logarithms, give values and logarithms of haversines, and assist in converting between degrees and radians.

The mathematician Kaj L. Nielsen (1914-1992) was born in Denmark in 1914, came to the United States in 1926, and studied at the University of Michigan and Syracuse University before obtaining a PhD. at the University of Illinois. In addition to teaching at Syracuse, Illinois, Brown, Louisiana State University, and Butler University; he worked in the Mathematics Division of the Naval Ordnance Plant in Indianapolis and also at the Battelle Memorial Institute there. He published a wide array of books relating to practical mathematics, especially numerical analysis. The first edition of this book appeared in 1943. This is a reprint from 1965 of the second edition of 1961.

Mechanical engineer Edward L. Heller (1912–2007) donated this book of tables to the Smithsonian. From 1956 to 1959, Heller worked as a nuclear project engineer for H. K. Ferguson Co. He was a technical manager for General Dynamics Corporation from 1959 to 1967.

References:

American Men and Women of Science, 12th ed., New York: J. Cattell Press, 1972, iii: p. 2620 (on Heller).

“Kaj L. Nielsen,” Math Times, Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois, Fall 1992, p. 7.

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