This book contains a series of articles summarizing the technical, institutional and intellectual history of mathematical tables from earliest times until the late 20th century when the electronic spreadsheet changed the way information is processed.

The curious property that John Farey observed in one of Henry Goodwyn's tables has enduring pratical and theoretic interest. This book traces the curious property, the mediant, from its initial sighting by Nicolas Chuquet and Charles Haros to its connection to the Riemann hypothesis by Jerome Franel.