Human computer

Mathematical tables

Human computers were used to compile 18th and 19th century Western European mathematical tables, for example those for trigonometry and logarithms. Although these tables were most often known by the names of the principal mathematician involved in the project, such tables were often in fact the work of an army of unknown and unsung computers. Ever more accurate tables to a high degree of precision were needed for navigation and engineering. Approaches differed, but one was to break up the project into a form of piece work completed at home. The computers, often educated middle-class women whom society deemed it unseemly to engage in the professions or go out to work, would receive and send back packets of calculations by post. The Royal Astronomical Society eventually gave space to a new committee, the Mathematical Tables Committee, which was the only professional organization for human computers in 1925.