Monday, November 23, 2009

Celebrate Fibonacci Day!


Today, November 23 (11/23) is Fibonacci Day! There will certainly be a huge celebration in the year 5813, but until then you can read some of our books discussing the beauty of Fibonacci sequences:

Fibonacci’s De Practica Geometrie (Springerlink online book)
The Mathematica Guidebook for Numerics (Springerlink online book)

You could also play around with writing a recursive function to generate some Fibonacci numbers of your own! Safari Tech books online offers these up for help:
C++ how to program: example using recursion
Java how to program: example using recursion

Enjoy!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics updated

The latest web version of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics is now online, including a new Structure searching feature. You can now search the handbook by chemical structure with a download-able Java Applet for drawing your structure query. Search over 10,000 compounds!

What else is new?

Now reflecting the content of the 90th print edition, the new web version adds tables covering 11 new topics:

Structures and functions of common drugs
Chemical constituents of human blood
Proton nmr shifts for solvents
Apparent Equilibrium Constants for Enzyme-Catalyzed Reactions
Phase Transitions in the Solid Elements at Atmospheric Pressure
Thermoelectric Properties of Metals and Semiconductors
Thermophysical Properties of Stainless Steel 310
Description of the IUPAC chemical identifier (InChI)
International recommendations on the expression of uncertainty of measurements
Major world earthquakes, 850AD to 2008
Nobel prize winners in Physics and Chemistry

And some of the most heavily used tables have been extensively revised and updated:

Nuclear moments for nmr spectroscopy
Mass spectral peaks for organic solvents
Properties of refrigerants
Interstellar molecules
Aqueous Solubility and Henry's Law Constants of Organic Compounds
Properties of the Solar System
Satellites of the Planets
Threshold Limits for Airborne Contaminants
Speed of Sound in Dry Air