History
Linear interpolation has been used since antiquity for filling the gaps in tables, often with astronomical data. It is believed that it was used by Babylonian astronomers and mathematicians in Seleucid Mesopotamia (last three centuries BC), and by the Greek astronomer and mathematician, Hipparchus (2nd century BC). A description of linear interpolation can be found in the Almagest (2nd century AD) by Ptolemy.
Read more about this topic: Linear Interpolation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)