Collection: Napier's Logarithmorum

John Napier of Merchiston (1 February 1550 – 4 April 1617), 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 Merchiston Castle and his remains were buried in the kirkyard of St Giles. Following the loss of the kirkyard there to build Parliament House, he was memorialised at St Cuthbert's at the west side of Edinburgh

Napier first published his work on logarithms in 1614 under the title Mirifici logarithmorum canonis descriptio, which translates literally as A Description of the Wonderful Table of Logarithms.

Indeed, the very title Napier selected reveals his high ambitions for this technique—the provision of tables based on a relation that would be nothing short of “wonder-working” for practitioners. As well as providing a short overview of the mathematical details, Napier gave technical expression to his concept. He coined a term from the two ancient Greek terms logos, meaning proportion, and arithmos, meaning number; compounding them to produce the word “logarithm.” Napier used this word as well as the designations “natural” and “artificial” for numbers and their logarithms, respectively, in his text.

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  • Napier Glossy Magic Mug
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