John Napier

From SystemsResearch

John Napier (1550-1617)

John Napier was born in Merchiston, Edinburgh in 1550. He matriculated at St Salvator's College, University of St Andrews in 1563. Very little is known about him during this period although he did study in Paris and travel in Italy and Germany before returning to Scotland to marry in 1571.

This was the period of the Scottish Reformation and Napier was very committed to the Protestant cause. In 1594, he wrote his Plaine Discovery of the whole Revelation of Saint John which he addressed to King James VI in a letter. This was the first Scottish book on the interpretation of scripture and has a significant place in the history of theology in Scotland.

John Napier is best known as the inventor of Logarithms. While important steps in the theory had been taken in the sixteenth century, notably by Burgi, it was Napier who first brought the subject, in any large way, to the attention of mathematicians. This was in his Mirifici logarithmorum canonis descripto (1614), the first important work on mathematics produced in Great Britain, and one which inspired Briggs, the professor of geometry at Gresham College, London, to develop the system of common logarithms with the decimal base. Napier also invented Napier rods or bones for use in multiplication, a development of a well-known Oriental method, and a number of formulae in trigonometry relating to circular parts. His other mathematical works include De arte logistica (1573 but not published until 1839), Rabdoligae seu numerationis per vigulas libri duo (1617), in which the rods are described, and Mirifici logarithmorum canonis constructio, published two years after his death.

Napier was also a great advocate of the decimal fraction system invented by Stevinus in 1585. Indeed, it appears that Napier introduced the decimal point into common usage and eliminated the use of notation to indicate fractional position.