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History of computing
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==Navigation and astronomy== Starting with known special cases, the calculation of logarithms and trigonometric functions can be performed by looking up numbers in a [[mathematical table]], and [[interpolation|interpolating]] between known cases. For small enough differences, this linear operation was accurate enough for use in [[navigation]] and [[astronomy]] in the [[Age of Exploration]]. The uses of interpolation have thrived in the past 500 years: by the twentieth century [[Leslie Comrie]] and [[W.J. Eckert]] systematized the use of interpolation in tables of numbers for punch card calculation.
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