The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences

The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences

Color picture of front cover Finally, after a delay of 22 years, the new book apppeared:

The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, N. J. A. Sloane and S. Plouffe, Academic Press, San Diego, 1995, 587 pp. ISBN 0-12-558630-2.

Reviews, etc

• Favorite quotation from a reader of the 1973 book: "There's the Old Testament, the New Testament, and The Handbook of Integer Sequences".
• The review by Richard K. Guy in The American Mathematical Monthly (Volume 104, Number 2, Feb. 1997, pp. 180-184) begins: "John Conway calls The Encyclopedia `The best present I've had in years'... "
• A Question of Numbers - Fascinating review by Brian Hayes in American Scientist.
• Equally fascinating review by J. M. Borwein and R. M. Corless in SIAM Review.
• One of the many reviews from the Amazon.com web page: Rating: "***** My God!"
  Reviewer: You Seng Peng from Taipei, Taiwan. December 12, 1999.
  

  "Since combinatorics is my major, this book fulfills my dream. It contains over 5000 sequences, from famous Fibonacci to notorious 1,3,6,11,17,25,... (perfect ruler, general term still unknown), to nonsense 1,11,21,1211,111221,.. (every term describe the former term). Nearly every important integer sequence in mathematics get a line here, with references. This is a dream book for combinatorics specialists, a must for high-school teachers while doing some short essays with gifted students, a fun book for mathematics fans, especially those like mathematical games."

• Even though the sequence table is now accessible through the Web and via email, you still need the book because:
  
  • it contains a convenient selection of the best 5487 sequences (the on-line version now has well over 50,000 sequences, far too many to print);
  • for the introductory chapters that describe (among other things) techniques for analyzing sequences;
  • for the illustrations, that describe a selection of the most interesting sequences;
  • because it is nice to see all the sequences together; and
  • as many readers have mentioned, it makes excellent bedtime reading!

Ordering information

The book may be ordered:

• from the publisher, Academic Press:
  Details: ISBN 0-12-558630-2, $44.95 (as of Feb 1997), 587pp., 5487 sequences. Academic Press: phone (800) 321 5068 in the US, or email to ap@acad.com. To order in Europe, contact Academic Press Inc. (London), 24-28 Oval Road, London NW1 7DX, Great Britain, phone: 01-81-300-33-22.
• or from Amazon.com

Further information

• The publisher unfortunately omitted the list of figures. This is available as either a plain text or postscript file. It can be pasted over the (presently blank) page vi.
• (Very) partial listing of errors in book