Orthogonal polynomials have had a long history. They have featured in the work of
Legendre on planetary motion, continued fractions of Stieltjes, mechanical quadrature of
Gauss etc.
After the publication of 'Orthogonal Polynomials' by Gabor Szego in 1938 relatively little
was published on orthogonal polynomials. This changed in the 1970's when increased
interest in approximation theory brought about by the incredible upsurge in the use of the
computer in the sciences occurred. [Abbreviated Abstract. Open document to view full version]
