User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox
The method of logarithms was first publicly propounded in 1614, in a book entitled Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio, by John Napier, Baron of Merchiston, in Scotland.
Jost Bürgi, a Swiss mathematician, independently discovered logarithms but did not publish his discovery until four years after Napier.[1]
Early resistance to the use of logarithms was muted by the support of Johannes Kepler, the German mathematician and astronomer, who published a clear and impeccable explanation in 1624 of how logarithms worked.[2]
The use logarithms contributed to the advance of science, and especially of astronomy, by making some difficult calculations possible. Prior to the advent of electronic calculators and computers, logarithms were used extensively in surveying, navigation, engineering, chemistry and many other disdiplines.
References
- ↑ Jost Bürgi (Website of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland)
- ↑ Johannes Kepler (Website of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland)