The Story Behind the Painting: "The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch" by Sir Henry Raeburn

Lynne Gladstone-Millar

Biographies & Memoirs

St. Andrew Press

When John Napier published his invention of logarithms in 1614 he was announcing one of the greatest advances in the history of mathematics, and log tables were used universally until the mid 1970s. With his Rabdologia, an ingenious calculating tool composed of numbered rods which came to be known as 'Napier's Bones', he enabled people in the marketplace to do multiplication sums without knowing any multiplication tables. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this most extrordinary man was that his great inventions were made without the stimulus of talking to other mathematicians in mainstream Europe. Working away in comparative isolation in a tower house in Scotland, Napier produced methods of calculation that literally changed lives all over the world. He is the father of the slide-rule and the grandfather of today's calculators. Despite his achievements, he remains curiously uncelebrated, and this absorbing story of his life aims to give John Napier his true status. This new edition has been redesigned in a new format and has a new cover.

John Napier: Logarithm John

Science & Math

Mathematics

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lynne Gladstone-Millar. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lynne Gladstone-Millar

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lynne Gladstone-Millar. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Story Behind the Painting: "The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch" by Sir Henry Raeburn

John Napier: Logarithm John