If the image above makes you salivate or at least gets your mind buzzing with excitement, you want to head directly over to Cambridge Publishing and grab the new 422 page Handbook of Mathematical Functions. Why? As noted in the press release:
The NIST HANDBOOK OF MATHEMATICAL FUNCTIONS has been the most widely distributed and cited resource for scholars, scientists, and engineers ever since it was first published in 1964. Over the past few decades, tremendous advances in applications of mathematics have taken place and the 2010 edition reflects these modern developments in theoretical and applied science.
So what do you get in this massive volume? From the description at Cambridge Publishing
Modern developments in theoretical and applied science depend on knowledge of the properties of mathematical functions, from elementary trigonometric functions to the multitude of special functions. These functions appear whenever natural phenomena are studied, engineering problems are formulated, and numerical simulations are performed. They also crop up in statistics, financial models, and economic analysis. Using them effectively requires practitioners to have ready access to a reliable collection of their properties. This handbook results from a 10-year project conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology with an international group of expert authors and validators. Printed in full colour, it is destined to replace its predecessor, the classic but long-outdated Handbook of Mathematical Functions, edited by Abramowitz and Stegun. Includes a DVD with a searchable PDF of each chapter.
So where did my cool image come from? Thought you’d never ask – it is from my new favorite NIST resource: the DIGITAL Library of Mathematical Functions! This is the online companion to the guide, which actually began as the full update to the 1964 volume and ended up forming the basis for the new 2010 release. In other words, you can actually find all of the basic content from the physical release in this online resource!
The Digital Library of Mathematical Functions (DLMF) Project was initiated to perform a complete revision of Abramowitz and Stegun’s Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables, published in 1964 by the National Bureau of Standards. See R. F. Boisvert and D. W. Lozier (2001) for historical background about this important publication. The DLMF Project has updated and expanded the coverage for current needs. The results have been published in book form as the NIST Handbook of Mathematical Functions, by Cambridge University Press, and disseminated in the free electronic Digital Library of Mathematical Functions.
So … if you are looking for the answers to all of your pressing boundary value problems, look no further! In all seriousness, I was poring through a book trying to remember something about eigenvalues last week and found it in about 10 seconds on the DLMF! As I said – this is my new favorite math site! Check it out!