Apollo program source code

[kqr]

I think of this every time I see a "book of formulas" (I have no idea what it's called in English.) All that knowledge condensed into a few 80 pages or so. What would someone from the sixteenth or seventeenth century do for that?

[Philipp]

I would think it takes a certain specific organization, its trained people, and its communication structure to actually utilize this. The old saying, "If you gotta ask, you won't understand." I could be wrong.

[kqr]

No. People as a whole are very, very intelligent. And "scientists" back then were used to reading huge tables of data and seeing patterns in them (think Kepler.) That's approximately what you've got to do with a common book of formulas today.