The Math Tables Project of the Work Projects Administration: The Reluctant Start of the Computing Era

Authors:
David Alan Grier
Affiliations:
George Washington Univ., Washington, DC
Venue:
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Year:
1998

Citing 9
Cited 2

The control revolution: technological and economic origins of the information society

The control revolution: technological and economic origins of the information society
Chaos: making a new science

Chaos: making a new science
The National Applied Mathematics Laboratories-A Prospectus

IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
The IBM Watson Laboratory at Columbia University: a history

The IBM Watson Laboratory at Columbia University: a history
Origins of the simplex method

A history of scientific computing
Early scientific computing in Britain

Early scientific computing in Britain
Women's Contributions to Early Computing at the National Bureau of Standards

IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Gertrude Blanch of the Mathematical Tables Project

IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Handbook of Mathematical Functions, With Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables,

Handbook of Mathematical Functions, With Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables,

Beautiful Numbers: The Rise and Decline of the British Association Mathematical Tables Committee, 1871-1965

IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
The Rise and Fall of the Committee on Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation

IEEE Annals of the History of Computing

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The Mathematical Tables Project, one of the last large human computing groups, began operation in 1938 as a WPA project in New York City. Unlike preceding computing organizations, the Math Tables Project mass produced calculations using unskilled labor. Prior to 1938, most hand computing organizations used well educated computing assistants who could operate independently. Over its 10-year history, the Math Tables Project completed 28 published volumes of tables and calculations for dozens of scientific and war projects. During World War II, it acted as a general computing contractor for the Office for Scientific Research and Development and prepared LORAN Navigation Tables for the Navy. After the war, it was absorbed by the National Bureau of Standards. It proved to be a transitional institution in the history of computing, promoting mass scientific computation and developing the numeric methods that would eventually be used on electronic computers