The Calculus of Observations: a Treatise on Numerical Mathematics

Abstract

A SET of numerical data, whether obtained from theory or experiment, gives rise to mathematical problems of interest and importance. The consideration of these problems now forms an important branch of pure mathematics: apart from this, some knowledge of them is required by workers in many fields-astronomers, meteorologists, physicists, engineers, naval architects, actuaries, biometricians, and statisticians. Until recently the subject has received but little attention in the mathematical departments of British universities. During the last ten years, how-_ever, interest in it has been thoroughly aroused, especially in the Universities of London and Edinburgh. To Prof. Karl Pearson, head of the Department of Applied Statistics at University College, London, is due the credit of organising a mathematical laboratory for dealing systematically with numerical problems. During the War, Prof. Pearson's laboratory was occupied with numerical work on ballistics: more lately it has produced a series of tracts on computation. In Edinburgh, Prof.?.?. Whittaker has also organised a mathematical laboratory, and the volume befpre us may be regarded as a manual of the methods that have been evolved there.

The Calculus of Observations: a Treatise on Numerical Mathematics.

By Prof. E. T. Whittaker G. Robinson. Pp. xvi + 395. (London, Glasgow and Bombay: Blackie and Son, Ltd., 1924.) 18s. net.