Technical Text Editing

To the typical scientist or mathematician, the computer is a marvelous device for calculating and sorting: it can crunch numbersn a t astonishing speeds, and find needle-like optimal solutions among haystacks of possible options. But in fact it can crunch letters as well as numbers. Indeed, letter crunching, I' better known as word processing, is one of the most rapidly expanding aspects of commercial computer applications. Typewriters are being replaced by video terminals, and offices of every size are converting their documents from ink and paper to electrons and disks. Several observers have likened the introduction of computer methods in word processing to Guttenberg's invention of moveable type. It will have a profound in fluence on the way everyone does business, not least scientists and mathematicians.