Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
An Atlas of Functions: with Equator, the Atlas Function Calculator 2nd Edition
Purchase options and add-ons
- ISBN-100387488065
- ISBN-13978-0397509171
- Edition2nd
- PublisherSpringer
- Publication dateDecember 2, 2008
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions8 x 1.25 x 10.75 inches
- Print length759 pages
Products related to this item
Editorial Reviews
Review
From the reviews of the second edition:
"The book is devoted to functions such as quadratic and cubic polynomials, absolute value, square roots, etc. … the Atlas comes with software for computing the functions described in the book. … the Atlas is valuable as a reference, it also contains a large amount of expository text. … The Atlas seems to have been written for the reader who is not in such a hurry and who might enjoy looking around a bit." (John Cook, The Mathematical Association of America, March, 2009)
"This is a compilation of several hundred functions that are frequently used by engineers, scientists, and mathematicians to obtain a quantitative result. … Each chapter in this handbook discusses a function or a family of related functions for a total of 65 chapters. … Each chapter contains definitions and properties for each function along with color graphs … . Engineers, scientists, and mathematicians will find this reference book to be a handy resource for manyyears." (Electrical Insulation Magazine, 2009)
"This book provides elementary and basic information on several hundred functions … . a combination of a book and software is useful for scientists concerned with the quantitative aspects of their field. … layout of the book is modern with very nice colorful graphs or surfaces of functions. Each chapter contains a lot of information about the functions studied in that chapter. … This book defends well its place in the mathematical literature." (Matti Vuorinen, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1167, 2009)
“This is the second edition of a handbook with same title … . There are numerous other improvements throughout this new edition but the objective remains the same to provide the reader regardless of his or her discipline with a succinct compendium of information about all the common mathematical functions in use today. … The layout of the book is excellent and it is a pleasure to see the glossy paper and the very high quality graphs. The inclusion of Equator is a useful contribution.” (Mourad E. H. Ismail, Mathematical Reviews, Issue 2010 f)From the Back Cover
This second edition of An Atlas of Functions, with Equator, the Atlas Function Calculator, provides comprehensive information on several hundred functions or function families of interest to scientists, engineers and mathematicians who are concerned with the quantitative aspects of their field. Beginning with simple integer-valued functions, the book progresses to polynomials, exponential, trigonometric, Bessel, and hypergeometric functions, and many more. The 65 chapters are arranged roughly in order of increasing complexity, mathematical sophistication being kept to a minimum while stressing utility throughout. In addition to providing definitions and simple properties for every function, each chapter catalogs more complex interrelationships as well as the derivatives, integrals, Laplace transforms and other characteristics of the function. Numerous color figures in two- or three- dimensions depict their shape and qualitative features and flesh out the reader’s familiarity with the functions. In many instances, the chapter concludes with a concise exposition on a topic in applied mathematics associated with the particular function or function family.
Features that make the Atlas an invaluable reference tool, yet simple to use, include:
full coverage of those functions―elementary and "special”―that meet everyday needs
a standardized chapter format, making it easy to locate needed information on such aspects as: nomenclature, general behavior, definitions, intrarelationships, expansions, approximations, limits, and response to operations of the calculus
extensive cross-referencing and comprehensive indexing, with useful appendices
the inclusion of innovative software--Equator, the Atlas Function Calculator
the inclusion of new material dealing with interesting applications of many of the function families, building upon the favorable responses to similar material in the first edition.
About the Author
Keith B. Oldham is a professor of Chemistry at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. He has co-authored several books, contributed to numerous others, and has published over 200 articles. He co-authored, with Jerome Spanier, the first edition of An Atlas of Functions.
Jan C. Myland is a Research Associate in Electrochemistry at Trent University.
Jerome Spanier is a prominent mathematics professor emeritus, currently a researcher at University of California, Irvine. He has received many prestigious honors and awards and has authored or co-authored numerous publications.
Product details
- Publisher : Springer; 2nd edition (December 2, 2008)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 759 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0387488065
- ISBN-13 : 978-0397509171
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 8 x 1.25 x 10.75 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,708,970 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #539 in Functional Analysis Mathematics
- #1,116 in Artificial Intelligence (Books)
- #2,079 in Mathematical Physics (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.
Related products with free delivery on eligible orders
Customer reviews
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star5 star76%24%0%0%0%76%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star4 star76%24%0%0%0%24%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star3 star76%24%0%0%0%0%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star2 star76%24%0%0%0%0%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star1 star76%24%0%0%0%0%
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
The Equator software - tough lacking graphics - will generate tables of function vales for direct use or for testing. The copy on the disk did not work on Windows 7 but the authors were very responsive in getting me a pointer to a newer version. I came to them with a bug and they fixed it in two days!
This extensive working reference is as essential as Abramowitz and Stegun and much more illuminating. In case of difficulty, one should find this reference book indispensable.
The second edition of the Atlas of Functions by Oldham and Spanier is a delightful reference work, full of information, and illuminated with beautiful graphics. Oldham, a chemist, and Spanier, a mathematician, had earlier cooperated on a book on Fractional Calculus (1974), which is now a classic, and was reprinted by Dover in 2006.
For this second edition of their 1987 Atlas of Functions, Oldham and Spanier got a third author, Jan Myland, who developed an accompanying, sophisticated software package, Equator, which effortlessly generates and displays numerical values for more than 200 mathematical functions, typically with 14-decimal precision. (Readers familiar with the often substandard precision of Excel's math functions may be surprised to learn that these are computed with Visual Basic - if that can be done by a single chemist, why can't Microsoft do it?) Incidentally, Equator is on a CD that comes with the Atlas, but can also be bought separately from Amazon, and is well worth its price. It can provide single values or a table of values for a given series of parameter values, which you can then copy to the computer clipboard for subsequent use in your own computations, or for graphing, printing, etc. No more need to interpolate either: you specify the parameters!
Relieved by Equator from the need to tabulate numerical functions, or to offer pseudo-code, this second edition of the Atlas of Functions, in 64 well-organized chapters, gives detailed, systematically organized overviews of the properties of each function, often illustrated with full-color graphics. There are also some interesting asides, such as on Laplace transformation or on statistical distributions. It is a worthy, highly readable successor to Abramowitz & Stegun's 1964 Handbook of Mathematical Functions (also a Dover book) and, in my opinion, vastly superior to the recent NIST Handbook of Mathematical Functions, edited by Olver, Lozier, Boisvert, and Clark, which lacks a unified approach as well as printed or digitally available tables of numerical values of the functions described. Even if you write your own routines, it is useful to have some calibration data.
I most highly recommend An Atlas of Functions to any scientist or engineer who needs a reliable, well-organized and highly informative guide to mathematical functions. Moreover, all science libraries should have it on their reference shelves.
I'm a programmer and disagree slightly with reviews that don't like pseudocode. Pseudo is intended to be independent of any particular language, and I've found that only slightly modifying the pseudos given here for (the free) GNU Octave command line works incredibly well! I'm guessing the authors tried them on MatLab, as Octave is now nearly a free clone of that expensive program. I agree with the reviewer who suggests you key in the formula, but the pseudo gives the transition commands in a generic fashion-- they work just fine when combining the function's formula with the pseudo in Python's math library, for example, as long as you have even a little object experience.
This is a real hidden gem, and if you're doing any advanced math that includes advanced log, exp etc. functions (eg path integrals), you'll find this both a valuable learning tool and ongoing reference. Highly Recommended.
Library Picks reviews only for the benefit of Amazon shoppers and has nothing to do with Amazon, the authors, manufacturers or publishers of the items we review. We always buy the items we review for the sake of objectivity, and although we search for gems, are not shy about trashing an item if it's a waste of time or money for Amazon shoppers. If the reviewer identifies herself, her job or her field, it is only as a point of reference to help you gauge the background and any biases.
Top reviews from other countries
Dennis Tuckerman
For the purpose targeted by the major users this book is unsurpassed even by handbooks of mathematical functions introduced nowadays.
Highly recommendable for all.
A customer