Comments, with reply, on "An approximation formula for the secondary emission yield" by M.T. Abuelma"atti

The commenter asserts that in the above-titled paper (see ibid., vol.37, p.1590-1591, 1990) the claim that the author's 2500 term summation 'simplifies the computer calculation' has no apparent validity. It only adds a spurious appearance of accuracy, when the fact is that the available data are at best reliable to a few percent. If one had the 14 data points used to calculate the 2500 terms, one could simply join them by straight lines and leave it at that-the error in this not likely to approach the probable errors of the data. The author discusses the points raised by the commenter. The merits and demerits of continuous and broken-line approximations of functions are discussed.<
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