Abramowitz and Stegun (AS) is the informal name of a 1964 mathematical reference work edited by Milton Abramowitz and Irene Stegun of the United States National Bureau of Standards (NBS), now the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Its full title is Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables. A digital successor to the Handbook was released as the "Digital Library of Mathematical Functions" (DLMF) on 11 May 2010, along with a printed version, the NIST Handbook of Mathematical Functions, published by Cambridge University Press.

Overview

Since it was first published in 1964, the 1046-page Handbook has been one of the most comprehensive sources of information on special functions, containing definitions, identities, approximations, plots, and tables of values of numerous functions used in virtually all fields of applied mathematics. The notation used in the Handbook is the de facto standard for much of applied mathematics today. At the time of its publication, the Handbook was an essential resource for practitioners. Nowadays, computer algebra systems have replaced the function tables, but the Handbook remains an important reference source. The foreword discusses a meeting in 1954 in which it was agreed that "the advent of high-speed computing equipment changed the task of table making but definitely did not remove the need for tables". The chapters are:

Editions

Because the Handbook is the work of U.S. federal government employees acting in their official capacity, it is not protected by copyright in the United States. While it could be ordered from the Government Printing Office, it has also been reprinted by commercial publishers, most notably Dover Publications (ISBN 0-486-61272-4), and can be legally viewed on and downloaded from the web. While there was only one edition of the work, it went through many print runs including a growing number of corrections. Original NBS edition: Reprint edition by Dover Publications:

Related projects

Michael Danos and Johann Rafelski edited the Pocketbook of Mathematical Functions, published by Verlag Harri Deutsch in 1984. The book is an abridged version of Abramowitz's and Stegun's Handbook, retaining most of the formulas (except for the first and the two last original chapters, which were dropped), but reducing the numerical tables to a minimum, which, by this time, could be easily calculated with scientific pocket calculators. The references were removed as well. Most known errata were incorporated, the physical constants updated and the now-first chapter saw some slight enlargement compared to the former second chapter. The numbering of formulas was kept for easier cross-reference. A digital successor to the Handbook, long under development at NIST, was released as the “Digital Library of Mathematical Functions” (DLMF) on 11 May 2010, along with a printed version, the NIST Handbook of Mathematical Functions, published by Cambridge University Press.