Quantum Chemistry, A New Start

After the important work of Heitler and London in 1927 as well as that of Hund and Mulliken, a great interest arose among scientists to apply the 

I used these tables of Preul for the first part of my doctoral work. The computation of integrals for a valence bond treatment of the H-F molecule on a mechanical desk calculator was greatly simplified by the fact that I could look up values for the required auxiliary functions in these tables. Toward the end of this work (1962-1963), I got access to the electronic computer Z23, which of course could perform the calculations in a much shorter time with much higher accuracy. 

Other numerical tables were apparently also produced in 1954-1956 by a Japanese group.One must conclude that at that time it was not widely forseeable that such numerical tables of functions, similar to tables of logarithms, would become obsolete so soon due to the rapid progress in electronic computers. 

---