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Denis Roegel
To cite this version:
Denis Roegel. A reconstruction of Crelle’s Erleichterungstafel (1836). [Research Report] 2011.
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Crelle’s Erleichterungstafel
(1836)
Denis Roegel
21 November 2011
J. W. L. Glaisher [7, p. 19]
August Leopold Crelle (1780–1855) was a German mathematician and construction
engineer. He was self trained and was granted a doctorate in mathematics for a thesis
submitted in 1815. He was also the architect of the first railway line in Prussia in 1838.
He is now most famous for having founded the Journal für die reine und angewandte
Mathematik in 1826, but he also published several mathematical treatises and textbooks,
as well as works on railway engineering and railway economics. Among other things, he
also published several mathematical tables, which are the subject of interest here.
Figure 1: August Leopold Crelle (1780–1855) (source: Wikipedia)
Crelle also worked on factor tables and completed the fourth, fifth and sixth millions,
1after Burckhardt’s initial work [1]. Crelle’s tables were however discovered to be too
inaccurate to publish. Crelle described methods for computing factor tables in 1853 [5].
1
Multiplication tables before Crelle
Multiplication tables have become so mundane that it is hard to imagine that they too
have a rich history.
2The 10 × 10 tables have been extended early on. A table giving the
products up to 100 × 1000 is for instance cited in the 16th century [12]. In 1610, Herwart
von Hohenburg published his Tabulæ arithmeticæ προσθαφαιρεσεος universales [9] which
1
At this point, it is not clear if Crelle’s manuscript tables do still exist. These tables were deposited
in the Archives of the Academy of sciences in Berlin. We have contacted the Academy of sciences, but
their archives are closed until the beginning of 2012. It should therefore be investigated further whether
Crelle’s manuscript do still exist, and whether they were really as inaccurate as has been written.
2
For a good overview of the history of tables of multiplication, see Glaisher’s report [7] and Weiss’
article [12].
There have been many other tables, but many of the tables were only giving the
product of a one digit number by a larger number, for instance up to 10 × 1000, or up to
10 × 100000.
2
Crelle’s Rechentafeln (1820)
Crelle’s Rechentafeln [3] published in 1820 were a major step forward in the development
of extended multiplication tables. Apart from Herwart’s table, this was the first widely
distributed table giving products up to 1000 × 1000.
3
Crelle’s Erleichterungstafel (1836)
In 1836, Crelle published his Erleichterungstafel (“simplification table”) [4], which gave
the products of all numbers up to 10 millions by 2, 3, . . . , 9.
Each page covers a range of 100 values of the last five digits of the multiplicand. For
instance, if we wish to compute 7 × 1121055, we must open up the page corresponding
to the interval 21000–21099. There are 1000 such intervals from 00000 to 99999.
Each page is divided in two parts: the right one is used with the last five digits of the
multiplicand (here 21055) and the left part is used with the remaining digits (here 11).
First, we look for 55 in the two columns marked 1 in the right part. The intersection of
the 55 line and the corresponding column 7 which follows it gives the number 85. Going
upwards on that column, we find the three digits 473 written one above each other. It
follows that the last five digits of the result are 47385.
Then, we look for 11 in the two columns marked 1 in the left part of the table.
Similarly, we take the number at the intersection with the next column 7. This number
is 78, and represents the left part of the result. The entire product is 7847385.
Although the right part of the table always gives the correct result, the left part
actually depends on the right one, and there may be a need to add a carry. This happens
quite rarely, but, when it is necessary, an asterisk (*) has been added to the partial result
in the right part of the table.
For instance, if we wish to compute 9 × 2311119, we find 00071 in the right part, but
71 is preceded by an asterisk. This means that a carry must be added to the left part.
In the left part, we find 207, and the result is therefore 20800071 and not 20700071. The
asterisks mark when the three marginal digits (representing the hundreds) have overflown,
as becomes obvious by looking at page 112 of the table. In order to prevent forgetting
to add this carry, the top and bottom of the columns also concerned in the left part are
surrounded by «
+1» and «
∗». These overflows only occur on pages 112, 143, 167, 223,
286, 334, 429, 445, 556, 572, 667, 715, 778, 834, 858, and 889.
Using this table, two numbers up to 10 millions can be multiplied by using only one
page of the table. For instance, in order to compute 9815734 × 7259483, it suffices to
consult the page for the interval 15700–15799, and to compute 9815734 × 3, 9815734 × 8,
4
Reconstruction
The table was first reconstructed using the one-page excerpt given by Stephan Weiss.
This excerpt was sufficient to reconstruct most of the table, but it did not illustrate the
asterisks marking carries. Our first reconstruction of the asterisks was therefore tentative.
Soon after the first version was made public, we obtained from Weiss excerpts of other
pages, in particular page 112, and this was used to display the asterisks correctly.
3
The following list covers the most important references
4related to Crelle’s table. Not all
items of this list are mentioned in the text, and the sources which have not been seen are
marked so. We have added notes about the contents of the articles in certain cases.
[1] Johann Karl Burckhardt. Table des diviseurs pour tous les nombres des 1
er, 2
eet 3
emillion, etc. Paris: Vve Courcier, 1817.
[2] Moritz Cantor. Crelle, August Leopold. In Historische Kommission bei der
Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, editor, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie,
volume 4, pages 589–590. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1876.
[3] August Leopold Crelle. Rechentafeln, welche alles Multipliciren und Dividiren mit
Zahlen unter Tausend ganz ersparen, bei grösseren Zahlen aber die Rechnung
erleichtern und sicherer machen. Berlin: Maurerschen Buchhandlung, 1820.
[2
volumes, reconstructed in [11]]
[4] August Leopold Crelle. Erleichterungs-Tafel für jeden, der zu rechnen hat :
enthaltend die 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, und 9fachen aller Zahlen von 1 bis 10 Millionen.
Berlin, 1836.
[not seen]
[5] August Leopold Crelle. Wie eine Tafel der untheilbaren Factoren der Zahlen bis zu
beliebiger Höhe möglichst leicht und sicher aufzustellen sei. Journal für die reine
und angewandte Mathematik, 51(1):61–99, 1856.
[6] August Leopold Crelle. Dr. A. L. Crelle’s Rechentafeln, welche alles Multipliciren
und Dividiren mit Zahlen unter Tausend ganz ersparen, bei grösseren Zahlen aber
die Rechnung erleichtern und sicherer machen. Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1914.
[edited
by Oskar Seeliger, not seen]
[7] James Whitbread Lee Glaisher. Report of the committee on mathematical tables.
London: Taylor and Francis, 1873.
[Also published as part of the “Report of the forty-third
meeting of the British Association for the advancement of science,” London: John Murray, 1874.
A review by R. Radau was published in the Bulletin des sciences mathématiques et
astronomiques
, volume 11, 1876, pp. 7–27]
[8] James Whitbread Lee Glaisher. Table, mathematical. In Hugh Chisholm, editor,
The Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition, volume 26, pages 325–336. Cambridge,
England: at the University Press, 1911.
4