Russell H. Tuttle

John Napier

John Russell Napier

The late John Napier was a physician specializing in hands, and he was also a professor and writer on primates and evolution. In this illustrated work, Napier explores a wide range of absorbing subjects such as fingerprints, handedness, gestures, fossil remains, and the making and using of tools. University of Chicago Professor of Anthropology Russell Tuttle updates Napier's work.

Hands

Nieuwe telkonst, inhoudende de logarithmi voor de ghetallen beginnende van 1 tot 10000, ghemaeckt van Henrico Briggio professor van de geometrie tot Ocxfort. Mitsgaders de tafel van hoeckmaten ende raeckijnen ... Welcke ghetallen eerst ghevonden zijn van Ioanne Nepero ... Door Ezechiel de Decker ...

Rabdologiæ, seu numerationis per virgulas libri duo: Cum Appendice de expeditissimo Multiplicationis promptuario. Quibus accessit et Arithmeticæ Localis Liber unus. Authore ... Ioanne Nepero, Barone Merchistonii

John Napier published his treatise on the discovery of logarithms in 1614. It was written in Latin, the scholarly language of his day, under the title Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio. The importance of the work was quickly perceived and an English language translation by Edward Wright followed two years later, with the title A Description of the Admirable Table of Logarithmes. A further English edition followed in 1618. It is said that this book freed the world from a logjam of calculations. John Napier spent more than twenty years working alone on his system of logarithms, during a time when the multiplication and division of large numbers, as well as the finding of square roots, was considered to be extremely difficult. Because of his discovery of logarithms, these tedious mathematical operations could be replaced by the much easier processes of simple addition, subtraction and division by two. Never again would astronomers, architects, merchants and navigators become bogged down with calculations that were simply too difficult or time consuming to carry out. Seeking a name for his discovery, Napier turned to Greek, coining the word Logarithm from logos (Greek for ratio or reckoning) and arithmos (Greek for number). Johannes Kepler, the imperial mathematician and astronomer at Prague, was one of the first to realize the enormous importance of Naperian logarithms. Initially indifferent, his attitude was quickly changed to one of great enthusiasm when he saw that tables of logarithms could considerably ease the burden of difficult astronomical calculations. The French mathematician and astronomer Pierre Simon Laplace said that logarithms, '...by shortening the labours, doubled the life of the astronomer.' At a congress held in Edinburgh to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the publication of this book, it was remarked that '...no previous work had led up to it; nothing had foreshadowed it or heralded its arrival. It stands isolated, breaking upon human thought abruptly, without borrowing from the works of other intellects or following known lines of mathematical thought.' Thus has posterity judged the worth of John Napier, Baron of Merchiston, and his logarithms.

A Description of the Admirable Table of Logarithmes

The Wonderful Canon of Logarithms, ... with a Full Description of Their Ready Use and Easy Application. ... Retranslated from the Latin Text, and Enlarged ... by H. Filipowski

The Construction of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms

On the title-page to this tract is a woodcut, representing two stars with clouds about them. Above is "The guide of Astrologers"; "Astra regunt homines, sed regit astra Deus" appears below. Under the latter inscription is a half-length figure of a bearded man, with a staff in his left hand (? Booker). Near him is the Devil, holding a two-thonged whip. Behind the Devil is "The Crosse of Rome" a carriage, in which are seated the pope, a pilgrim holding a cross, and a naked human figure with a cross on the forehead. Below this is "Rome" a city with churches. On the right of Booker, if it be he, is "London" a city. Above the last is "The Joy of England", i.e. a king (probably King Charles the First) on a throne with two councillors seated at either hand, and two men kneeling at a bar before him. On the king's left is "The destruction of the World" showing a curtain half withdrawn from before a dark field or ground, on which lie many feathers or fallen leaves. A skull and cross-bones occupy the lower corner of the woodcut, below the last.

The Bloody Almanack: to which England is directed, to fore-know what shall come to passe, by that famous Astrologer, M. John Booker. Being a perfect Abstract of the Prophecies proved out of Scripture, by the noble Napier, etc

In Rajasthan, India, a caste of musicians and mendicants, the Nath-Jogis, sing stories of kings who renounce their thrones to become wandering mendicants. They also sing of a god, Mahadeva, Shiva, who must abandon his world-renouncing life and marry, thus establishing the very caste that tells his story. This is the first detailed ethnomusicological study of the music of this caste, examining how the existential questions of the sung stories—of the conflict between loyalty to families or communities and the transcending desire to renounce the material world—are articulated in musical performances in which the caste’s own ethnography is inscribed. Discussing the relationship between the performed repertoire and the caste’s identity, the contexts of performance and ways in which familiar stories are effectively retold, the book offers a transcription, translation and musical and ethnographic analysis of one performance, by Kishori Nath, and shows how the questions the performances project are not merely speculative acts of self-identification but also challenges to audiences to consider their own responses.

John Napier

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