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Scottish mathematician and theological writer
- John Napier (1550-April 4, 1617) was a Scottish mathematician and theological writer who developed the concept of logarithms and the decimal point as a mathematical calculation method. He also had an influence in the world of physics and astronomy.
www.thoughtco.com/john-napier-biography-4077399Biography of John Napier, Scottish Mathematician - ThoughtCo
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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.
- Overview
- Early life
- Theology and inventions
- Contribution to mathematics
John Napier (born 1550, Merchiston Castle, near Edinburgh, Scotland—died April 4, 1617, Merchiston Castle) Scottish mathematician and theological writer who originated the concept of logarithms as a mathematical device to aid in calculations.
At the age of 13, Napier entered the University of St. Andrews, but his stay appears to have been short, and he left without taking a degree.
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Little is known of Napier’s early life, but it is thought that he traveled abroad, as was then the custom of the sons of the Scottish landed gentry. He was certainly back home in 1571, and he stayed either at Merchiston or at Gartness for the rest of his life. He married the following year. A few years after his wife’s death in 1579, he married again.
Napier’s life was spent amid bitter religious dissensions. A passionate and uncompromising Protestant, in his dealings with the Roman Catholic Church he sought no quarter and gave none. It was well known that James VI of Scotland hoped to succeed to the English throne after Elizabeth I, and it was suspected that he had sought the help of the Catholic Philip II of Spain to achieve this end. Panic-stricken at the peril that seemed to be impending, the general assembly of the Scottish Church, a body with which Napier was closely associated, begged James to deal effectively with the Catholics, and on three occasions Napier was a member of a committee appointed to make representations to the king concerning the welfare of the church and to urge him to see that “justice be done against the enemies of God’s Church.”
In January 1594 Napier addressed to the king a letter that forms the dedication of his Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of Saint John, a work that, while it professed to be of a strictly scholarly character, was calculated to influence contemporary events. In it he declared:
Let it be your Majesty’s continuall study to reforme the universall enormities of your country, and first to begin at your Majesty’s owne house, familie and court, and purge the same of all suspicion of Papists and Atheists and Newtrals, whereof this Revelation forthtelleth that the number shall greatly increase in these latter daies.
The work occupies a prominent place in Scottish ecclesiastical history.
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Napier devoted most of his leisure to the study of mathematics, particularly to devising methods of facilitating computation, and it is with the greatest of these, logarithms, that his name is associated. He began working on logarithms probably as early as 1594, gradually elaborating his computational system whereby roots, products, and quotients could be quickly determined from tables showing powers of a fixed number used as a base.
His contributions to this powerful mathematical invention are contained in two treatises: Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio (Description of the Marvelous Canon of Logarithms), which was published in 1614, and Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Constructio (Construction of the Marvelous Canon of Logarithms), which was published two years after his death. In the former, he outlined the steps that had led to his invention.
Logarithms simplified calculations, especially multiplication, such as those needed in astronomy—that is, log mn = log m + log n. A multiplication problem becomes an addition problem. In cooperation with the English mathematician Henry Briggs, Napier adjusted his logarithm into its modern form. For the Naperian logarithm the comparison would be between points moving on a graduated straight line, the L point (for the logarithm) moving uniformly from minus infinity to plus infinity, the X point (for the sine) moving from zero to infinity at a speed proportional to its distance from zero. Furthermore, L is zero when X is one and their speed is equal at this point. The essence of Napier’s discovery is that this constitutes a generalization of the relation between the arithmetic and geometric series; i.e., multiplication and raising to a power of the values of the X point correspond to addition and multiplication of the values of the L point, respectively. In practice it is convenient to limit the L and X motion by the requirement that L = 1 at X = 10 in addition to the condition that X = 1 at L = 0. This change produced the Briggsian, or common, logarithm.
In the Descriptio, besides giving an account of the nature of logarithms, Napier confined himself to an account of the use to which they might be put. He promised to explain the method of their construction in a later work. This was the Constructio, which claims attention because of the systematic use in its pages of the decimal point to separate the fractional from the integral part of a number. Decimal fractions had already been introduced by the Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin in 1586, but his notation was unwieldy. The use of a point as the separator occurs frequently in the Constructio. Joost Bürgi, the Swiss mathematician, between 1603 and 1611 independently invented a system of logarithms, which he published in 1620. But Napier worked on logarithms earlier than Bürgi and has the priority due to his prior date of publication in 1614.
Jun 13, 2019 · John Napier (1550-April 4, 1617) was a Scottish mathematician and theological writer who developed the concept of logarithms and the decimal point as a mathematical calculation method. He also had an influence in the world of physics and astronomy. Fast Facts: John Napier.
- Deb Russell
Apr 4, 2011 · John Napier was a Scottish scholar who is best known for his invention of logarithms, but other mathematical contributions include a mnemonic for formulas used in solving spherical triangles and two formulas known as Napier's analogies.
John Napier was a famous Scottish mathematician who is best known for his invention of logarithms which are used to help with mathematical calculations. He is also credited with bringing the decimal point into common use.
He is widely considered to be the first Scotsman to have made a significant contribution to scientific learning. He was respected by mathematicians and scientists worldwide, notably Galileo, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton. Napier invented logarithms in 1614.
Apr 6, 2017 · John Napier was a Scottish mathematician and inventor. Napier is famous for creating mathematical logarithms, creating the decimal point, and for inventing Napier's Bones, a calculating instrument.
