John Napier

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The World of John Napier - famous for his Logs and Bones.

Napier

Brief details of John Napier:

Born in Merchiston Tower in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1550. The Tower is now part of the Edinburgh Napier University.
His father was Sir Archibald Napier and was aged 16 when John was born.
He died on 4 April 1617.
His name was Neper in Latin and he sometimes signed himself by that as a nickname. There is a crater on the Moon which has been named Neper. Another of his nicknames was Marvellous Merchiston.
Published a 57 page paper titled Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio which outlined the concept of logarithms and included 90 pages of tables to assist people to use his ideas to simplify their calculations.
He adopted the use of the decimal point to separate the integer part of a number from the fractional part - just one of many approaches involving commas or full-stops or bars placed in a variety of positions. The discussion on this issue continued at least until 1978 - and probably still continues in some circles today.
In 1572, he married 16 year old Elizabeth with whom he had two children. Elizabeth died in 1579.
He later married Agnes Chisolm and had a further 10 children. Clearly he did not do mathematics all the time :).
He was often perceived as a magician who was associated with the occult. He often carried with him a black spider in a small box. His black rooster was regarded as his familiar spirit.
Napier also developed a manually operated calculating device. It was based on the concept that multiplication can be reduced to addition operations and division to subtractions. It consisted of a base board with rods made from strips of wood or metal to enable multiplication or division. The device became known as Napier's Bones. Pretty complicated to use!!!