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The 19 degree pages from Napier's 1614 table of logarithms of trigonometric functions Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio. The term Napierian logarithm or Naperian logarithm, named after John Napier, is often used to mean the natural logarithm. Napier did not introduce this natural logarithmic function, although it is named after him.
The English mathematician Henry Briggs visited Napier in 1615, and proposed a re-scaling of Napier's logarithms to form what is now known as the common or base-10 logarithms. Napier delegated to Briggs the computation of a revised table, and they later published, in 1617, Logarithmorum Chilias Prima ("The First Thousand Logarithms"), which gave ...
John Napier (1550–1617), the inventor of logarithms Title page of Napier's 1614 table of logarithms of trigonometric functions Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio The 19 degree pages from Napier's 1614 table. The left hand page covers angle increments of 0 to 30 minutes, the right hand page 30 to 60 minutes
John Napier is best known as the discoverer of logarithms. He also invented the so-called " Napier's bones " and made common the use of the decimal point in arithmetic and mathematics. Napier's birthplace, Merchiston Tower in Edinburgh , is now part of the facilities of Edinburgh Napier University .
Logarithms were introduced by John Napier in 1614 as a means of simplifying calculations. [1] They were rapidly adopted by navigators, scientists, engineers, surveyors, and others to perform high-accuracy computations more easily. Using logarithm tables, tedious multi-digit multiplication steps can be replaced by table look-ups and simpler ...
The computing devices in Rabdology were overshadowed by Napier's seminal work on logarithms as they proved more useful and more widely applicable. Nevertheless, these devices (as indeed are logarithms) are examples of Napier's ingenious attempts to discover easier ways to multiply, divide and find roots of numbers.
The book contained fifty-seven pages of explanatory matter and ninety pages of tables related to natural logarithms. The English mathematician Henry Briggs visited Napier in 1615, and proposed a re-scaling of Napier's logarithms to form what is now known as the common or base-10 logarithms. Napier delegated to Briggs the computation of a ...
Napier published his discovery in 1614, and this publication was widely disseminated in Europe by the time Bürgi published at the behest of Johannes Kepler. Bürgi may have constructed his table of progressions around 1600, but Bürgi's work is not a theoretical basis for logarithms, although his table serves the same purpose as Napier's.