Gaspard de Prony

The tables developed by de Prony's team were doubly important for French metric cartography. Firstly, at the time, sailors needed logarithms for math pertaining to spherical geometry, because this was needed to quickly and accurately position themselves to guarantee safe and efficient travel across the seas.[7] However, the implementation of the new French Revolutionary metric system would make the old logarithmic tables would be obsolete, and French sailors would be unwilling to switch measurement systems since it would have rendered positional calculations significantly more difficult and less precise. Thus, de Prony, by making new logarithmic tables for the new metric system, would have facilitated the transition, enabling sailors to adopt the system. The second key element was that trigonometric values were needed for cadastral measures. Thus, for accurate mapping of the French territory and its subdivisions all the way down to the lowest levels of property ownership, de Prony needed to complete the trigonometric tables. These were both seen as crucial for Revolutionary pride considering the importance of naval prowess at the time and the need for administrative efficiency.[8]

According to Prony, the project was to leave "nothing to desire with respect to exactitude" and to be "the most vast... monument to calculation ever executed or even conceived." The tables were not used for their original purpose of bringing consistent standards for measurement, as the entire cadastre project saw delays in establishing both new measurement units as well as budget cuts. In particular, these tables, which were designed for the decimal division of circles and time, turned out to be obsolete after the French had changed their measurement system. Moreover, there was no practical use for the full extent of de Prony's calculation's accuracy. Hence, these tables became more of artifacts and monuments to Enlightenment rather than objects of practical use.[3]

By the turn of the 19th century, there was a shift in the meaning of calculation. The talented mathematicians and other intellectuals who produced creative and abstract ideas were regarded separately from those who were able to perform tedious and repetitive computations. Before the 19th century, calculation was regarded as a task for the academics, while afterwards, calculations were associated with unskilled laborers. This was accompanied by a shift in gender roles as well, as women, who were usually underrepresented in mathematics at the time, were hired to perform extensive computations for the tables as well as other computational government projects until the end of World War II. This shift in the interpretation of calculation was largely due to de Prony's calculation project during the French Revolution.[3]^: 186 This project was able to unite people from many different walks of life as well as mathematical abilities (in the traditional sense) and hence changed the meaning of calculation from intelligence into unskilled labor.[3]^: 190

Prony was able to have artisans (workers who excelled in mechanical arts that require intelligence) work along with mathematicians to perform the calculations. Prony noted a few interesting observations about this new dynamic. First, it was fascinating to see so many different people work on the same problem. Second, he realized that even the ones with the least intellectual ability were able to perform these computations with astonishingly few errors. Prony saw this entire system as a collection of human computers working together as a whole - a machine governed by hierarchical principles of the division of labor. In fact, Prony may have begun to amend his notion of intelligence, which he began to use to evaluate the system as a whole, rather than evaluating the intelligence of its constituents.[3]^: 195, 6

Charles Babbage, credited with inventing the first mechanical computer, was inspired by de Prony's take on Smith's division of labor. He agreed with the three tiered system, but Babbage was seized by the idea that the labours of the unskilled computers could be taken over completely by machinery. This would keep only the two highest groups human, and also would transform the role of the planners into a maintenance group for the machine.[9]

The French Revolutionary government passed the law that made the metric system the official measurement system in 1795, but they did not include the decimal angle measurement, making much of de Prony's work worthless. This also meant that the funding needed for de Prony to finish and publish his tables dried up. De Prony continued his work until 1800, but because his publisher went bankrupt, the work was not seen by the public eye until the first excerpt of the table was published a century later.[4] The Napoleonic government abandoned the project, before abandoning the metric system entirely in 1812 dooming de Prony's work.[10]