Re: [HM] scientific notation
Robert Stein (bstein@csusb.edu)
Thu, 1 Apr 1999 17:24:28 -0800 (PST)
The Sand Reckoner is indeed interesting, in that it is the first to deal
with the issue of "order of magnitude". However, I was motivated by the use
of scientific notation in the modern form, where in effect one calculates
with the mantissas and then adjusts the decimal point in accordance with
the laws of exponents and the characteristics. This is now so ubiquitous on
calculators that one woudl think its history is well documented. Since I am
interested in the history of logarithms, I thought my wife's question would
be easy for me to answer, but so far it has proved resistant. In the
meantime, however, I really enjoyed looking over the Sand Reckoner again.
Thanks for bringing me back to it.
Bob