I also sensed the kind of unwonted lack of emotional involvement that Gene complains of, not only from this but also from other Web sources of mathematics, e.g. Wikipedia, MathWorld. One difference that occurs to me on reflection is that the older sources, as well as some web-based sources put up by individual enthusiasts discussing special topics, are telling a story: developing their subject in a coherent narrative, rather than cherry-picking a few highlights in isolation. It seems on the face of it odd that I should be criticising web content on these grounds, seeing that space is no longer the constraining factor that it was for print. Another factor may be historical and cultural, rather than material. While attempting to record its URL, I accidentally downloaded Simon Plouffe's monster scan of A & S, only becoming aware when the completed document popped up on screen. As the next hour was frittered away scanning pages of stuff which was (or ought to be) already familiar, I was struck by the palpable sense of sheer effort that had gone into its preparation, from the painstaking assembly of its content down to the care with which it had been typeset. In much the same vein, I can still remember the excitement I experienced when I first set eyes on the drawings in Jahnke & Emde "Tables of Functions", at least some of which was surely due to their having been executed and reproduced by dedicated professional draughtsmen and printers. Perhaps, in a word, what we miss is --- beauty. Fred Lunnon On 11/4/08, rcs@xmission.com <rcs@xmission.com> wrote:

NIST recently released a 5-chapter preview of the DLMF online "tables" project (an online successor to the Abramowitz & Stegun book of tables). The chapters available include the Gamma Function and Number Theory.

http://dlmf.nist.gov

I was looking it over, and came away strangely dissatisfied. I was trying to put my finger on why, but I can't really explain it. The website doesn't have the same thrill as flipping through the book. The typesetting is reasonable. I can't fault dropping out the numeric tables, and replacing them with pointers to the original paper book, along with augmented references. They've added a section on software for computing the functions, with pointers to ACM algorithms[$$]. I might wish for a more thorough introduction to the subject of the Gamma Function, but the original A&S book certainly didn't do more than scratch the surface. And the introductory material could well get in the way of looking up some fine detail.

What's wrong with this picture?

Rich

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