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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index N > John Napier Quotes

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John Napier
(1550 - 4 Apr 1617)

Scottish mathematician and writer who created tables of logarithms which greatly simplified doing calculations. He chose to use base e, and his work was extended to use base 10 by Henry Briggs.


Science Quotes by John Napier (1 quote)

Seeing there is nothing that is so troublesome to mathematical practice … than the multiplications, divisions, square and cubical extractions of great numbers, which besides the tedious expense of time are … subject to many slippery errors, I began therefore to consider [how] I might remove those hindrances.
— John Napier
From Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio (1614), as translated by William Rae Macdonald in A Description of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms (1889),
Science quotes on:  |  Cube (14)  |  Division (67)  |  Error (339)  |  Expense (21)  |  Extraction (10)  |  Hindrance (9)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Number (710)  |  Remove (50)  |  Square (73)  |  Tedious (15)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trouble (117)



Quotes by others about John Napier (3)

…by shortening the labours doubled the life of the astronomer.
On the benefit of Napier’s logarithms.
Quoted in H. Eves, In Mathematical Circles (1969).
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Logarithm (12)

Foreshadowings of the principles and even of the language of [the infinitesimal] calculus can be found in the writings of Napier, Kepler, Cavalieri, Pascal, Fermat, Wallis, and Barrow. It was Newton's good luck to come at a time when everything was ripe for the discovery, and his ability enabled him to construct almost at once a complete calculus.
In History of Mathematics (3rd Ed., 1901), 366.
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He [Lord Bacon] appears to have been utterly ignorant of the discoveries which had just been made by Kepler’s calculations … he does not say a word about Napier’s Logarithms, which had been published only nine years before and reprinted more than once in the interval. He complained that no considerable advance had been made in Geometry beyond Euclid, without taking any notice of what had been done by Archimedes and Apollonius. He saw the importance of determining accurately the specific gravities of different substances, and himself attempted to form a table of them by a rude process of his own, without knowing of the more scientific though still imperfect methods previously employed by Archimedes, Ghetaldus and Porta. He speaks of the εὕρηκα of Archimedes in a manner which implies that he did not clearly appreciate either the problem to be solved or the principles upon which the solution depended. In reviewing the progress of Mechanics, he makes no mention either of Archimedes, or Stevinus, Galileo, Guldinus, or Ghetaldus. He makes no allusion to the theory of Equilibrium. He observes that a ball of one pound weight will fall nearly as fast through the air as a ball of two, without alluding to the theory of acceleration of falling bodies, which had been made known by Galileo more than thirty years before. He proposed an inquiry with regard to the lever,—namely, whether in a balance with arms of different length but equal weight the distance from the fulcrum has any effect upon the inclination—though the theory of the lever was as well understood in his own time as it is now. … He speaks of the poles of the earth as fixed, in a manner which seems to imply that he was not acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes; and in another place, of the north pole being above and the south pole below, as a reason why in our hemisphere the north winds predominate over the south.
From Spedding’s 'Preface' to De Interpretations Naturae Proœmium, in The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 3, 511-512. [Note: the Greek word “εὕρηκα” is “Eureka” —Webmaster.]
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See also:
  • 4 Apr - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Napier's death.
  • John Napier: Life, Logarithms, and Legacy, by Julian Havil. - book suggestion.

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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