Bateman Manuscript Project

The Bateman Manuscript Project was a major effort at collation and encyclopedic compilation of the mathematical theory of special functions. It resulted in the eventual publication of five important reference volumes, under the editorship of Arthur Erdélyi.

The theory of "special functions" was a core activity of the field of applied mathematics, from the middle of the nineteenth century to the advent of high-speed electronic computing. The intricate properties of spherical harmonics, elliptic functions and other staples of problem-solving in mathematical physics, astronomy and right across the physical sciences, are not easy to document completely, absent a theory explaining the inter-relationships. Mathematical tables to perform actual calculations needed to mesh with an adequate theory of how functions could be transformed into those already tabulated.

Harry Bateman, a distinguished applied mathematician, undertook the somewhat quixotic task of trying to collate the content of the very large literature. On his death in 1946, his papers on this project were still in a uniformly rough state. The publication of the edited version provided special functions texts more up-to-date than, for example, the classic "Whittaker & Watson".

The volumes were out of print for many years, but Dover are reprinting them for publication late 2007 (url needed).

References

*"Higher Transcendental Functions" Volumes 1, 2, 3 by Arthur Erdelyi ISBN 0-486-44614-X ISBN 0-486-44615-8 ISBN 0-486-44616-6
*"Tables of Integral Transforms" Volumes 1, 2 by Arthur Erdelyi ISBN 07-019549-8