diff --git a/doc/source/elementary.rst b/doc/source/elementary.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..a1951a10
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/elementary.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,136 @@
+.. _algorithms_elementary:
+
+Algorithms for elementary functions
+===============================================================================
+
+(This section is incomplete.)
+
+We typically compute elementary functions using the following steps:
+reduction to a combination of
+standard function (exp, log, atan, sin, cos of a real argument), reduction
+to a standard domain, convergence-accelerating argument reduction
+(using functional equations and possibly precomputed lookup tables),
+followed by Taylor series evaluation.
+
+Arctangents
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+It is sufficient to consider `x \in [0,1)`, since
+`\operatorname{atan}(x) = \operatorname{atan}(-x)` for `x < 0`,
+`\operatorname{atan}(1) = \pi/4`, and
+`\operatorname{atan}(x) = \pi/2 - \operatorname{atan}(1/x)` for `x > 1`.
+
+For sufficiently small `x`, we use the Taylor series
+
+.. math ::
+
+    \operatorname{atan}(x) = x - \frac{x^3}{3} + \frac{x^5}{5} - \ldots
+
+Applying the argument-halving formula
+
+.. math ::
+
+    \operatorname{atan}(x) = 2 \operatorname{atan}\left(\frac{x}{1+\sqrt{1+x^2}}\right)
+
+`r` times gives `x \le 2^{-r}`.
+
+Applying the formula
+
+.. math ::
+
+    \operatorname{atan}(x) = \operatorname{atan}(p/q) +
+        \operatorname{atan}(w),
+        \quad w = \frac{qx-p}{px+q},
+        \quad p = \lfloor qx \rfloor
+
+gives `0 \le w < 1/q`. At low precision, picking a moderately large `q` (say `q = 2^8`),
+and using a lookup table for
+`\operatorname{atan}(p/q), p = 0, 1, \ldots, q-1`, is much better than repeated argument-halving.
+This transformation can be applied repeatedly with a sequence of increasing
+values of `q`. For example, `(q_1 = 2^4, q_2 = 2^8)` requires
+only `2^5` precomputed table entries, but the evaluation
+costs one extra division).
+
+At high precision, the `\operatorname{atan}(p/q)` values
+can be evaluated using binary splitting. Choosing `q = 2, 4, 8, \ldots`
+results in a version of the bit-burst a algorithm.
+
+Error propagation for arctangents
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+A generic derivative-based error bound is
+
+.. math ::
+
+    \sup_{\xi \in [-1,1]} |\operatorname{atan}(m) - \operatorname{atan}(m+\xi r)|
+        \le \frac{r}{1+\max(0,|m|-r)^2} \le r.
+
+An exact representation for the propagated error is given by
+
+.. math ::
+
+    \sup_{\xi \in [-1,1]}  |\operatorname{atan}(m) - \operatorname{atan}(m + \xi r)| =
+        \begin{cases}
+        \operatorname{atan}\left(\frac{r}{1+|m|(|m|-r)}\right) & \text{if } r \le |m| \\
+        \frac{\pi}{2} - \operatorname{atan}\left(\frac{1 + |m| (|m|-r)}{r}\right) & \text{if } r > |m|
+        \end{cases}.
+
+Logarithms
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+It is sufficient to consider `\log(1+x)` where `x \in [0,1)`, since
+`\log(t 2^n) = \log(t) + n \log(2)`.
+
+We only use the Taylor series
+
+.. math ::
+
+    \log(1+x) = x - \frac{x^2}{2} + \frac{x^3}{3} - \ldots
+
+directly when `x` is so small that the linear or quadratic
+term gives full accuracy. In general we use the more efficient series
+
+.. math ::
+
+    \operatorname{atanh}(x) = x + \frac{x^3}{3} + \frac{x^5}{5} + \ldots
+
+together with the identity `\log(1+x) = 2 \operatorname{atanh}(x/(2+x))`.
+
+Applying the argument-halving formula
+
+.. math ::
+
+    \log(1+x) = 2 \log\left(\sqrt{1+x}\right)
+
+`r` times gives `x \le 2^{-r}`.
+
+Applying the formula
+
+.. math ::
+
+    \log(1+x) = \log(p/q) +
+        \log(1+w),
+        \quad w = \frac{qx-p}{p+q},
+        \quad p = \lfloor qx \rfloor
+
+gives `0 \le w < 1/q` (see analogous remarks for the arctangent).
+
+Error propagation for logarithms
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+A generic derivative-based error bound is
+
+.. math ::
+
+    \sup_{\xi \in [-1,1]} |\log(m) - \log(m+\xi r)|
+        \le \frac{r}{m-r}.
+
+An exact representation for the propagated error is given by
+
+.. math ::
+
+    \sup_{\xi \in [-1,1]} |\log(m) - \log(m+\xi r)| = \log(1 + r/(m-r)).
+
+Of course, these formulas require `m > r \ge 0` (otherwise, the real
+logarithm is undefined).
+
diff --git a/doc/source/index.rst b/doc/source/index.rst
index 2306af27..d5f597f3 100644
--- a/doc/source/index.rst
+++ b/doc/source/index.rst
@@ -48,6 +48,7 @@ Algorithms and proofs
    :maxdepth: 1
 
    constants.rst
+   elementary.rst
    polylogarithms.rst
 
 Module documentation (extra modules for mathematical functions)