John Napier Facts
John Napier Facts
|
| Interesting John Napier Facts: |
|---|
| John Napier was born in Merchiston Castle and was common in the 16th century was educated at home until the age of 13. |
| He seems to have attended St Salvator's College, St Andrews for a brief time which stirred a life-long interest in religion. |
| In 1593 he wrote A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John in which he predicted the apocalypse i would occur in 1688 or 1700. |
| He studied and traveled in Europe for several years and returned to Scotland in 1571. |
| In 1614 he wrote Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio which contained 90 pages of tables of natural logarithms and also contained theorems in spherical trigonometry known as Napier's Rules of Circular Parts. |
| Both of his books have been translated into English and are available on the internet. |
| In 1615 he was visited by English mathematician, Henry Briggs, and Napier assigned Briggs the task of revising the computation tables. |
| Logarithms and exponential notation made calculations much quicker and was important to scientific advances in astronomy, and physics. |
| Napier improved Stevin's decimal notation and used it extensively in his calculations. |
| He invented the calculating device, Napier's bones, which is a series of numbered rods. |
| This invention made the lattice multiplication introduced by Fibonacci much easier. |
| Napier corresponded with the famous astronomer, Tycho Brahe, who learned of Napier's logarithm system. |
| Edinburgh Napier University is named for him and the University's Merchiston Campus was built on his land. |
|
Related Links: Facts Scientists Facts Animals Facts |