The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilisation by Michael Brooks

Author:Michael Brooks [Brooks, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC022000, MAT015000, HIS039000, SOC002010, MAT000000, HIS016000, MAT003000, HIS054000
ISBN: 9781925849875
Google: SDowzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2021-08-31T23:21:56.153952+00:00

Johannes Kepler saw a logarithmic relationship between the planets’ orbit size and the time it takes them to go once round the Sun

If we plot this out in what we know today as a log–log graph, the relation seems obvious. At some point between 1609 and 1618, something in Kepler’s brain appears to have made a logarithmic leap. It only seems fair to suggest that Napier (and Briggs) may have made a huge, unanticipated and almost entirely unappreciated contribution to astronomy.

Even more work was saved by the automation of these calculations. Napier’s first venture in this direction was with some wooden sticks that came to be known as Napier’s rods (or Napier’s bones, when later editions were made from ivory). As with his logarithm, Napier’s rods were designed to turn difficult calculations into easy ones. The rods were divided into squares, each of which was divided diagonally into two triangles. In each triangle a number was inscribed, and the arrangement of the numbers turned these sticks into calculating tools that require addition skills but not multiplication.

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