"taking its name from John Napier, the inventor of logarithms and the decimal point, who was born in 1550 in the medieval tower house of Merchiston Castle (the site of the University's Merchiston campus). His statue stands in the tower of Merchiston Castle today. An opening ceremony was held on 23 February 1965. In 1966, it was renamed Napier College of Science and Technology. In 1974, it merged with the Sighthill-based Edinburgh College of Commerce to form Napier College of Commerce and Technology, which became a Central Institution in 1985. The college was renamed Napier Polytechnic in 1986 and in"
"John Napier John Napier of Merchiston (; 1550 – 4 April 1617); also signed as Neper, Nepair; nicknamed Marvellous Merchiston) was a Scottish landowner known as a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. He was the 8th Laird of Merchiston. His Latinized name was Ioannes Neper. 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. Napier died from the effects of gout at home at"
"had ten more children. His father-in-law James Chisholm of Cromlix was later mixed up in the Spanish blanks plot, over which Napier with others petitioned the king. John Napier John Napier of Merchiston (; 1550 – 4 April 1617); also signed as Neper, Nepair; nicknamed Marvellous Merchiston) was a Scottish landowner known as a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. He was the 8th Laird of Merchiston. His Latinized name was Ioannes Neper. 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"
"John Napier introduced logarithms as a powerful mathematical tool. With the help of the prominent mathematician Henry Briggs their logarithmic tables embodied a computational advance that made calculations by hand much quicker. His Napier's bones used a set of numbered rods as a multiplication tool using the system of lattice multiplication. The way was opened to later scientific advances, particularly in astronomy and dynamics. At Oxford University, Edmund Gunter built the first analog device to aid computation. The 'Gunter's scale' was a large plane scale, engraved with various scales, or lines. Natural lines, such as the line of chords, the"
"combinatorics. This idea was taken up by Leibniz centuries later, and is thus one of the founding elements in computing and information science. Scottish mathematician and physicist John Napier discovered that the multiplication and division of numbers could be performed by the addition and subtraction, respectively, of the logarithms of those numbers. While producing the first logarithmic tables, Napier needed to perform many tedious multiplications. It was at this point that he designed his 'Napier's bones', an abacus-like device that greatly simplified calculations that involved multiplication and division. Since real numbers can be represented as distances or intervals on a"
"in Kensington, where it received so much attention that several societies consulted the Spanish representation about the origin and use of the apparatus. Napier's bones Napier's bones is a manually-operated calculating device created by John Napier of Merchiston for calculation of products and quotients of numbers. The method was based on Arab mathematics and the lattice multiplication used by Matrakci Nasuh in the Umdet-ul Hisab and Fibonacci's work in his Liber Abaci. The technique was also called Rabdology. Napier published his version in 1617 in ""Rabdology.,"" printed in Edinburgh, Scotland, dedicated to his patron Alexander Seton. Using the multiplication tables"
"named after John Napier (1550-1617), the Scottish mathematician who invented logarithms and published his first tables in 1614. Napier Island Napier Island is an island, long, in the southeastern part of Marguerite Bay, west-northwest of Mount Balfour on the Fallières Coast. Following survey and mapping as an ice rise in the Wordie Ice Shelf by the Falklands Islands Dependencies Survey in 1958, this feature was named ""Napier Ice Rise"" by the UK Antarctic Place-names Committee (UK-APC). The name was amended to Napier Island by the UK-APC after a general eastward recession of the Wordie Ice Front (around 1999) revealed it"
"Napier's bones Napier's bones is a manually-operated calculating device created by John Napier of Merchiston for calculation of products and quotients of numbers. The method was based on Arab mathematics and the lattice multiplication used by Matrakci Nasuh in the Umdet-ul Hisab and Fibonacci's work in his Liber Abaci. The technique was also called Rabdology. Napier published his version in 1617 in ""Rabdology.,"" printed in Edinburgh, Scotland, dedicated to his patron Alexander Seton. Using the multiplication tables embedded in the rods, multiplication can be reduced to addition operations and division to subtractions. More advanced use of the rods can even"
"can learn no good at home"", and it is believed that this advice was followed. In 1571, Napier, aged 21, returned to Scotland, and bought a castle at Gartness in 1574. On the death of his father in 1608, Napier and his family moved into Merchiston Castle in Edinburgh, where he resided the remainder of his life. He died at the age of 67. Many mathematicians at the time were acutely aware of the issues of computation and were dedicated to relieving practitioners of the calculation burden. In particular, the Scottish mathematician John Napier was famous for his devices to"
"in 1547. The most famous of the name was John Napier the seventeenth Laird of Merchiston who developed the system of Logarithm. In 1617 he was succeeded by his son, Archibald Napier, 1st Lord Napier who accompanied James VI and I to claim his new throne in England. Napier married the daughter of the fourth Earl of Montrose and sister of James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose. As the brother-in-law of the king's captain the Napiers supported the king throughout the Scottish Civil War. Lord Napier died in 1645 and his only son, Archibald Napier, 2nd Lord Napier, was forced"
"Promptuary The promptuary was a calculating machine invented by the 16th-century Scottish mathematician John Napier and described in the second edition of his book ""Rabdologiae"" in which he also described Napier's bones. It is an extension of Napier's Bones, using two sets of rods to achieve multi-digit multiplication. The rods for the multiplicand are similar to Napier's Bones, with repetitions of the values. The set of rods for the multiplier are shutters or masks for each digit placed over the multiplicand rods. The results are then tallied from the digits showing as with other lattice multiplication methods. The final form"
"The development of logarithms is given credit as the largest single factor in the general adoption of decimal arithmetic. The ""Trissotetras"" (1645) of Thomas Urquhart builds on Napier's work, in trigonometry. An alternative unit to the decibel used in electrical engineering, the neper, is named after Napier, as is Edinburgh Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland. The crater Neper on the Moon is named after him. In 1572, Napier married 16-year-old Elizabeth, daughter of James Stirling, the 4th Laird of Keir and of Cadder. They had two children. Elizabeth died in 1579, and Napier then married Agnes Chisholm, with whom he"
"Rabdology In 1617 a treatise in Latin titled Rabdologiæ and written by John Napier was published in Edinburgh. Printed three years after his treatise on the discovery of logarithms and in the same year as his death, it describes three devices to aid arithmetic calculations. The devices themselves don't use logarithms, rather they are tools to reduce multiplication and division of natural numbers to simple addition and subtraction operations. The first device, which by then was already popularly used and known as Napier's bones, was a set of rods inscribed with the multiplication table. Napier coined the word rabdology (from"
"described by Napier took advantage of symmetries to compact the rods, and used the materials of the day to hold system of metal plates, placed inside a wooden frame. Promptuary The promptuary was a calculating machine invented by the 16th-century Scottish mathematician John Napier and described in the second edition of his book ""Rabdologiae"" in which he also described Napier's bones. It is an extension of Napier's Bones, using two sets of rods to achieve multi-digit multiplication. The rods for the multiplicand are similar to Napier's Bones, with repetitions of the values. The set of rods for the multiplier are"
"as the logarithms will a few years later. The method of logarithms was publicly propounded by John Napier in 1614, in a book titled ""Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio"" (""Description of the Wonderful Rule of Logarithms""). Johannes Kepler, who used logarithm tables extensively to compile his ""Ephemeris"" and therefore dedicated it to Napier, remarked: By repeated subtractions Napier calculated for ""L"" ranging from 1 to 100. The result for ""L""=100 is approximately 0.99999 = 1 − 10. Napier then calculated the products of these numbers with for ""L"" from 1 to 50, and did similarly with and . These computations, which"
"James Robert Napier James Robert Napier, FRS (12 September 1821 – 13 December 1879), Scottish engineer and scientific writer, was the inventor of ""Napier's diagram"", a tool for nautical navigation. James Robert Napier was born in Camlachie, Glasgow in 1821, the son of father Robert Napier, himself a noted shipbuilder. He was educated at the High School of Glasgow, where he was found to excel at mathematics, and graduated from the University of Glasgow. He was placed in charge of his father's shipbuilding business in 1842. In 1848 he married Emma Mary Twentyman, daughter of the silversmith Lawrence Holme Twentyman,"
"1544 which contains a table of integers and powers of 2 that has been considered an early version of a logarithmic table. The method of logarithms was publicly propounded by John Napier in 1614, in a book entitled ""Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio"" (""Description of the Wonderful Rule of Logarithms""). 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"
"was such that it made calculations by hand much quicker. The way was opened to later scientific advances, in astronomy, dynamics, and other areas of physics. Napier made further contributions. He improved Simon Stevin's decimal notation. Lattice multiplication, used by Fibonacci, was made more convenient by his introduction of Napier's bones, a multiplication tool using a set of numbered rods. Napier may have worked largely in isolation, but he had contact with Tycho Brahe who corresponded with his friend John Craig. Craig certainly announced the discovery of logarithms to Brahe in the 1590s (the name itself came later); there is"
"Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland from 1863-65. He was inducted into the Royal Society of London in 1867. He died in Glasgow in December 1879, after contracting an illness while boating on Loch Lomond. James Robert Napier James Robert Napier, FRS (12 September 1821 – 13 December 1879), Scottish engineer and scientific writer, was the inventor of ""Napier's diagram"", a tool for nautical navigation. James Robert Napier was born in Camlachie, Glasgow in 1821, the son of father Robert Napier, himself a noted shipbuilder. He was educated at the High School of Glasgow, where he was found to"
"Neper The neper (symbol: Np) is a logarithmic unit for ratios of measurements of physical field and power quantities, such as gain and loss of electronic signals. The unit's name is derived from the name of John Napier, the inventor of logarithms. As is the case for the decibel and bel, the neper is a unit defined in the international standard ISO 80000. It is not part of the International System of Units (SI), but is accepted for use alongside the SI. Like the decibel, the neper is a unit in a logarithmic scale. While the bel uses the decadic"
"commonly used in computer science. Logarithms were introduced by John Napier in the early 17th century as a means to simplify calculations. They were rapidly adopted by navigators, scientists, engineers, and others to perform computations more easily, using slide rules and logarithm tables. Tedious multi-digit multiplication steps can be replaced by table look-ups and simpler addition because of the fact—important in its own right—that the logarithm of a product is the sum of the logarithms of the factors: provided that , and are all positive and . The present-day notion of logarithms comes from Leonhard Euler, who connected them to"
"computing devices in Rabdology were overshadowed by his 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. Location arithmetic in particular foreshadowed the ease of and power of mechanizing binary arithmetic, but was never fully appreciated. Rabdology In 1617 a treatise in Latin titled Rabdologiæ and written by John Napier was published in Edinburgh. Printed three years after his treatise on the discovery of logarithms and in the same year as"
"as by Bells, by Trumpets, by Lights and Torches, by the report of Muskets, and any instruments of like nature"". (See Bacon's cipher.) John Napier in 1617 described a system he called location arithmetic for doing binary calculations using a non-positional representation by letters. Thomas Harriot investigated several positional numbering systems, including binary, but did not publish his results; they were found later among his papers. Possibly the first publication of the system in Europe was by Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz, in 1700. Leibniz studied binary numbering in 1679; his work appears in his article ""Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire"" (published"
"assist with computation. He invented a well-known mathematical artifact, the ingenious numbering rods more quaintly known as “Napier's bones,” that offered mechanical means for facilitating computation. (For additional information on “Napier's bones,” see the article, “John Napier: His Life, His Logs, and His Bones” (2006).) In addition, Napier recognized the potential of the recent developments in mathematics, particularly those of prosthaphaeresis, decimal fractions, and symbolic index arithmetic, to tackle the issue of reducing computation. He appreciated that, for the most part, practitioners who had laborious computations generally did them in the context of trigonometry. Therefore, as well as developing the"
"natural logarithms with decimal points shifted 7 places rightward and with sign reversed. For instance the logarithmic values would have the corresponding Napierian logarithms: For further detail, see history of logarithms. Napierian logarithm 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. However, if it is taken to mean the ""logarithms"" as originally produced by Napier, it is a function given by (in terms of the modern natural logarithm): The Napierian logarithm satisfies identities quite similar"
"Location arithmetic Location arithmetic (Latin ""arithmeticæ localis"") is the additive (non-positional) binary numeral systems, which John Napier explored as a computation technique in his treatise ""Rabdology"" (1617), both symbolically and on a chessboard-like grid. Napier's terminology, derived from using the positions of counters on the board to represent numbers, is potentially misleading in current vocabulary because the numbering system is non-positional. During Napier's time, most of the computations were made on boards with tally-marks or jetons. So, unlike how it may be seen by the modern reader, his goal was not to use moves of counters on a board to"
"Location arithmetic Location arithmetic (Latin ""arithmeticæ localis"") is the additive (non-positional) binary numeral systems, which John Napier explored as a computation technique in his treatise ""Rabdology"" (1617), both symbolically and on a chessboard-like grid. Napier's terminology, derived from using the positions of counters on the board to represent numbers, is potentially misleading in current vocabulary because the numbering system is non-positional. During Napier's time, most of the computations were made on boards with tally-marks or jetons. So, unlike how it may be seen by the modern reader, his goal was not to use moves of counters on a board to"
"William Oughtred William Oughtred ( ; 5 March 1574 – 30 June 1660) was an English mathematician and Anglican clergyman. After John Napier invented logarithms and Edmund Gunter created the logarithmic scales (lines, or rules) upon which slide rules are based, Oughtred was the first to use two such scales sliding by one another to perform direct multiplication and division. He is credited with inventing the slide rule in about 1622. He also introduced the ""×"" symbol for multiplication and the abbreviations ""sin"" and ""cos"" for the sine and cosine functions. Oughtred was born at Eton in Buckinghamshire (now part"
"recreational mathematics, ""Récréations Mathématiques"" (1624) by Hendrik van Etten, a pseudonym of Jean Leurechon. The translation itself is no longer attributed to Oughtred, but (probably) to Francis Malthus. Oughtred also invented the Universal equinoctial ring dial. William Oughtred William Oughtred ( ; 5 March 1574 – 30 June 1660) was an English mathematician and Anglican clergyman. After John Napier invented logarithms and Edmund Gunter created the logarithmic scales (lines, or rules) upon which slide rules are based, Oughtred was the first to use two such scales sliding by one another to perform direct multiplication and division. He is credited with"
"method of logarithms was publicly propounded by John Napier in 1614, in a book entitled ""Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio"" (""Description of the Wonderful Rule of Logarithms""). 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 revised table, and they later published, in 1617, ""Logarithmorum Chilias Prima"" (""The First Thousand Logarithms""), which gave a brief account of"
"book ""De Thiende"" ('the art of tenths'), published in Dutch in 1585, contained a systematic treatment of decimal notation, which influenced all later work on the real number system. The New algebra (1591) of François Viète introduced the modern notational manipulation of algebraic expressions. For navigation and accurate maps of large areas, trigonometry grew to be a major branch of mathematics. Bartholomaeus Pitiscus coin the word ""trigonometry"", publishing his ""Trigonometria"" in 1595. John Napier is best known as the inventor of logarithms and made common the use of the decimal point in arithmetic and mathematics. After Napier, Edmund Gunter created"
"logarithmic relation, Napier set it in a trigonometric context so it would be even more relevant. His work, ""Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio"" (1614) contained fifty-seven pages of explanatory matter and ninety pages of tables of numbers related to natural logarithms (see Napierian logarithm). The book also has an excellent discussion of theorems in spherical trigonometry, usually known as Napier's Rules of Circular Parts. Modern English translations of both Napier's books on logarithms and their description can be found on the web, as well as a discussion of Napier's Bones (see below) and Promptuary (another early calculating device). His invention of"
"bones were a calculating help introduced by the Scot John Napier in 1617 to assist lattice method calculations. Grid method multiplication In mathematics education at the level of primary school or elementary school, the grid method (also known as the box method) of multiplication is an introductory approach to multi-digit multiplication calculations, i.e. multiplications involving numbers larger than ten. Compared to traditional long multiplication, the grid method differs in clearly breaking the multiplication and addition into two steps, and in being less dependent on place value. Whilst less ""efficient"" than the traditional method, grid multiplication is considered to be more"