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My question is when the last book containing a table of logarithms was published. For example, I know that the CRC Standard Mathematical Tables doesn't contain the logarithmic tables any more, but they used to. What was the last edition to contain the tables?

Edit: Since it would be hard to claim that no-one in the world uses log tables anymore, I restrict my example to Europe and the USA.

Edit: To restrict this further, I would restrict to the publisher being a well-established publishing house.

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  • It probably coincides with the multiplication of pocket calculators
    – Bregalad
    Apr 7, 2015 at 15:46
  • I'm not sure they coincided with calculators. I remember having to buy (school requirement) log books much after calculators hit the market. I'm not even sure if they are not being printed in some corner of the world.
    – Rajib
    Apr 7, 2015 at 16:06
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    @Rajib: Ok, maybe we should just consider the USA and Europe.
    – John Doe
    Apr 7, 2015 at 16:11
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    This is an unanswerable question. I could self publish a book to Amazon right now full of logarithms. As stated the question is ambiguous.
    – Tyler Durden
    Apr 7, 2015 at 16:49
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    A math textbook I helped proofread two years ago had a table of logarithms in one of the appendices. It's a good bet that it's still in publication today, since it was produced by a well-established publisher in the United States.
    – Mark
    Apr 8, 2015 at 0:47

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Logarithmic tables and logarithmic slide rules generally disappear in the late 70th and early 80th, with the spread of cheap portable electronic calculators. Also computation with logarithms disappear from the school curriculum.

One cannot say however exactly when the last set of tables was published. Some very similar tables are STILL in print.

I mean the tables for navigation, for example. They contain essentially logs of sines, and are designed to solve a spherical triangle. They are still published (and sold and bought) For example, here:

https://www.celestaire.com/books-software/sight-reduction.html

You may ask: who buys and uses them. The answer is a) hobbyists who like to do celestial navigation as it was done in the old days and b) those who justify their hobby by saying that they worry for backup for the Doomsday (when the batteries are dead/non available, GPS goes off, Internet not available, etc.)

I do not think anyone makes slide rules nowadays. But there is a large market for the old ones (see e-bay).

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    I'd say this successfully answers the spirit of the question, since the actual question as-written is an unanswerable mess.
    – o0'.
    Apr 7, 2015 at 22:49
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Here is a book published in 2015 with logarithms in it:

http://www.amazon.com/Plane-Spherical-Trigonometry-Four-Place-Logarithms/dp/1505945224/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428446107&sr=1-9&keywords=table+of+logarithms

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    The author died in 1943. This is a photographic reprint of an old book. "Published" means new.
    – fdb
    Apr 7, 2015 at 23:01
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    @fdb Exactly what he means by "published" is unclear, probably one of the reasons the question was closed.
    – Tyler Durden
    Apr 7, 2015 at 23:52

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