Thanks for the compliments

I appreciate the enthusiastic comments I've received on my little essay
on approximating cents with a four-function calculator. In my own work,
I do indeed use a calculator with a ln/exp key and I recommend that
everybody else do too for accurate calculations of cents. However, if one
is ever stuck with only a four-function device, usefully accurate
approximations to cents are still relatively easy to compute. I find this
fact quite remarkable and very non-intuitive, so I decided to share it
with the List.

I found the approximation for ln[(x-e)/(x+e)] in Rektorys's "Survey of
Applicable Mathematics." Without this background, Ellis's procedure is
very mysterious and thus easy to ignore in favor of logs. BTW, has
anyone looked up Ellis's and Sauveur's papers on this topic?

Of course, if one is using JI, then simply memorizing the cent values of
a small set of key intervals such as 3/2, 5/4, 7/4, 11/8, 13/8, etc.
would be sufficient.

--John

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