Table of the Logarithms of Sines and Tangents for Every Second of the First Five Degrees and of the Sines, Cosines, Tangents and Cotangents, for Every Ten Seconds of the Quadrant

Paris: Firmin Didot, 1827. First Edition. Contemporary binder's cloth.. A very good copy; original spine laid down; untrimmed; unopened.. 8vo, title, [372] pp. Printed on yellow paper.

Callet's logarithmic tables were generally regarded as being the most accurate ever produced to that date. This volume was printed for Babbage as an accompaniment to the first editon of his own issue of logarithmic tables in 1827. Henderson points out that this volume of Callet was printed by Didot on the special yellow buff paper to match the Babbage issue. Van Sinderen points out that Babbage wanted to produce a set of tables without error and that Callet was one of Babbage's original and acknowledged sources. The set of tables offered here, providing trigonometrical functions, was taken en bloc from Callet by Babbage who was a connoisseur and collector of printed mathematical tables and a fastidious analyst of tabular errors. It could be purchased separately when issued. A superb artifact of the history of computing and printing. Henderson, p. 98; not in Van Sindern (see #33); M. Campbell-Kelly. Charles Babbage's table of logarithms (1827), University of Warwick. Department of Computer Science, 1987