Accurate Square Roots

Abstract

IN NATURE for June 19, Mr. John Wishart directs attention to certain inaccuracies of one unit in the last printed place in Barlow's Tables of the square roots of numbers. Such errors are very common in these tables, applying to approximately ten per cent, of all the square roots; and they also apply, apparently even more frequently, to the cube roots. The reciprocals in the same tables are much more accurate, but even these are occasionally in error by a unit of the last printed place.