Napier John
Other names: Marvellous Merchiston, He was the 8th Laird of Merchistoun.
Achievements: InventedLogarithms
Born: 1550; Merchiston Castle, near Edinburgh, Scotland
Died: April 4, 1614; Merchiston, Scotland (Aged 64)
Field & Discipline: Mathematics; Invention; Scholar; Landowner, Inventor; Mathematician
Education: St Salvator college, St Andrews University, St Andrews
Major Work:
“Mirifici Logartihmorum Canonis Descriptio” (1614, “Description of the Canon of Wonderful Logarithms”)
Life & Times:
Napier was born into an old aristocratic Scots family. Throughout his childhood, Scotland was unsettled, often violently, by the consequences of the Reformation and by the political intrigues arising out of the minority of their monarch, the Catholic [subject of] Mary Queen of Scots*.The Napiers were Protestants and Napier’s father held judicial office during the regency. At the age of thirteen, Napier entered university. He made close friends with a committed Catholic, and the conflict between his friendship and religion inspired his resolve to write the Protestant exposition of the Book of Revelation, which later brought him fame among his contemporaries across Europe.
Napier probably stayed for only one year in St Andrews and although nothing is known of his further education it is supposed that he studied classical languages and possibly mathematics on the continent. By 1571 Napier had returned to Scotland to find he could no longer make a home at Merchiston castle. His father had remarried to a woman with strong connections to Mary, Queen of Scots, who had by now been deposed in favor of her infant son, James VI of Scotland (later James I of England). Napier was further embroiled by the fact that his maternal uncle, the Bishop of Orkney, had officiated at the marriage ceremony of Mary to the Earl of [family links with] Bothwell*In spite of his Protestantism, Napier’s father was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle and Merchiston was occupied by the king’s forces. At the time of Napier’s marriage in 1573, the castle was being besieged by forces loyal to the queen. Napier and his wife moved away from Edinburgh and settled at Gartness in Stirlingshire where Napier began his first mathematical studies.
He did not publish any of his early work but papers found later show that he was ahead of his time as the inventor of several forms of mathematical notation. He advocated a decimal system in place of the astronomical notation of hours, minutes and seconds, and is credited with devising the system of writing decimal fractions in use today. He pioneered the modern method of writing equations, and anticipated [anticipated] Newton* in calculating the powers of numbers. He also developed a triangular diagram to calculate the higher powers.Although the French mathematician Reginald Giraud is credited with being the first to write imaginary numbers, Napier’s notes show that he was already engaging in this practice.
In 1588 Napier was elected as one of the commissioners of the Presbytery of Edinburgh to attend the General Assembly. The mood of the assembly was greatly affected by the dispatch by Catholic Spain of their Armada to the English Channel, and it was this threat of invasion which made Napier interested in technical problems of defense. His proposed inventions included a mirror which used reflected sunlight to ignite enemy ships from a distance and a “round chariot of mettle” operated from inside – ie, a tank.
New moves against Catholics in Scotland after the Armada scare caused some of them to plot an uprising and Napier, who had remarried after being widowed, was implicated through his in-laws. He had to sign a bond for an enormous amount of money promising that his father-in-law, Sir James Chisholm, would not move against the king.After Chisholm was threatened with excommunication, Napier was involved in discussions with the king and the Presbyterian authorities and appears to have persuaded Chisholm to accept Protestantism.
In 1593 he at last published his work on the Book of Revelation, “A Plaine Discovery of the whole Revelation of St John” in which he interpreted the prophecies given to St John in relation to the subsequent the history of the Christian church and identified with Roman Catholic church with the Anti-Christ. It was a justification of the Protestant Reformation and Napier considered it to be the most important work of his lifetime. It was written in the vernacular, translated into French, Dutch and German over the next twenty years and was the work for which his contemporaries knew him.
In Scotland, among the uneducated, Napier also had a reputation for being involved with occult, something he did little to discourage – either because he had a sense of humor or because it was useful for keeping servants in order.Of more practical value was his improvement to Archimedes screw by which he produced a device that he patented in 1597. It was of great value in clearing flooded water and draining mines and was widely adopted.Together with his son (later [son was] Sir Archibald Napier*), Napier also was involved in a number of agricultural improvements. During all these activities, he had been conducting his mathematical studies and in 1614 he published his “Mirifici Logartihmorum Canonis Descriptio” (“Description of the Canon of Wonderful Logarithms”) which was dedicated to James’s son, the future [dedicated work to] Charles I*.This work described the invention of [invented] logarithms* which revolutionized the way in which astronomers, navigators and others made their calculations. The English mathematician [work related to] Henry Briggs* began at once to give lectures on logarithms to his students, and Napier’s invention led a few years later to [influenced] Oughtred*’s invention of the slide rule.
The astronomer [his work used by]Johannes Kepler* (who was laboring under the task of completing the Rudolphine astronomical tables for the German emperor) was largely instrumental in extending the use of logarithms on the continent. The Swiss instrument-maker [similar work by] Burgi* had developed a system of calculation similar to Napier’s that was known to Kepler but when he saw a copy of Napier’s work he declared it to be “unsurpassed”.
In Napier’s last publication, entitled “Rabdologiae”, he described his system of “numeration by little rods”, known as “Napier’s bones” because they were often made of ivory or bone – or perhaps even because they became generally known not long after Napier’s death. The rods expressed mathematical values in a visible, concrete form and were particularly useful for teaching place value.Napier intended this system to provide a simplified way of calculation for ordinary people, and it was eagerly adopted by traders, merchants and bankers. At the age of twenty-nine, the diarist [referred to by] Pepys* realized that despite a grammar school education and a Cambridge degree, he lacked the mathematical skills he needed for his job at the Admiralty. In his diary of 1667 he recorded that his teacher was coming round to instruct him in “the mighty use of Napier’s bones”. The rods were in constant use until the end of the eighteenth century.
Assessment: Napier is remembered today as the inventor oflogarithms.
Oneliner: The inventor of logarithms
Language: English
Father: Sir Archibald Napier
Mother: Janet Bothwell
Siblings: 1 brother: Francis; I sister: Janet
Spouse: Ellizabeth Stirling; Agnes Chisholm
Children: By Stirling: 1 son: Archibald, 1 daughter: Jane; By Chisholm: 5 sons, 5 daughters
Bibliography:
- Bryden, D. J.,Napier’s Bones, Harriet Wynter Publications Ltd., London, SW2.
- Shennan, Francis, Flesh and Bones, Napier Polytechnic of Edinburgh, 1989.