John Napier

John Napier of Merchiston, known to many as Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish landowner who lived from 1550 to 1617. He was not only a landowner but also a talented mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. Today, he is most famous for discovering logarithms, which made complex calculations much easier.

Napier also created an early calculating tool called Napier's bones and helped make the decimal point commonly used in math. He was the 8th Laird of Merchiston, a title that means he was the owner of a large estate. His birthplace, Merchiston Tower in Edinburgh, is now part of Edinburgh Napier University. You can still see a memorial for him at St Cuthbert's Parish Church in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh.

Life

John Napier was born in 1550 in Scotland to Sir Archibald Napier and Janet Bothwell. His father was only 16 when John was born. Though we don’t know much about John’s early education, he later studied in Europe and learned Greek, which was unusual at the time.

In 1571, when he was 21, John returned to Scotland. He bought a castle in Gartness and later moved into Merchiston Castle in Edinburgh after his father passed away. John made many clever inventions to help with math, including tools called Napier's bones. He also wrote about ways to defend ships using special mirrors that could burn enemies from a distance. John passed away in 1617 at the age of 67 from an illness called gout.

Mathematics

John Napier made important contributions to mathematics. He is best known for inventing logarithms, which made complex calculations much easier. His book from 1614 included tables of these logarithms and also discussed special math rules for shapes on a sphere.

Napier also improved how numbers were written with decimals and created a tool called Napier's bones to help with multiplication. He worked with other famous scientists and shared his ideas about logarithms with them. His work opened the door for many new discoveries in science, especially in areas like studying the stars and understanding motion.

Theology

John Napier was very interested in the Book of Revelation, even when he was a student at St Salvator's College, St Andrews. He believed the Pope was the Antichrist and wrote about his views.

Napier thought his book A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593) was his most important work. He wrote it in English so that many people could read it. In this book, Napier used math to study the Book of Revelation and tried to guess when big future events, called the Apocalypse, might happen. He believed these events would happen step by step over time. He thought the end of the world might come in 1688 or 1700, but he also said no one really knows the exact date.

Napier dedicated this book to James VI and asked the king to help make things better in the country. The book was popular and was translated into Dutch, French, and German.

Interest in the occult

In addition to his work in math, John Napier was sometimes seen as a magician by people around him. Stories say he might have tried things like alchemy and necromancy. Some even thought he had a special animal helper called a familiar spirit.

His neighbors sometimes thought he was doing magic, especially after a few strange events. For example, Napier had a black chicken that he used in a clever way to find a thief. He told his servants to touch the chicken in a dark room, but he had secretly covered the chicken with soot. When they came out, he checked their hands to see who was too scared to touch the chicken.

Napier also used clever tricks with animals. Once, he wanted to stop pigeons from eating his grain, so he spread grain mixed with alcohol in a field. The pigeons got too drunk to fly, and he could easily catch them.

There is also a story about Napier agreeing to look for hidden treasure at Fast Castle with Robert Logan of Restalrig, but he never found any treasure there.

Influence

John Napier had many followers who used his ideas. Two of them were instrument makers named Edmund Gunter and John Speidell. Napier's discovery of logarithms helped people use decimal arithmetic more easily. Another writer, Thomas Urquhart, used Napier's work in his book called Trissotetras.

A mathematician named Henry Briggs also liked Napier's logarithms. He made a new table of logarithms using base 10, and it was very exact, with 14 decimal places.

Eponyms

Many things are named after John Napier. In electrical engineering, a unit called the neper is used, and it is named after him. There is also a university in Edinburgh, Scotland, called Edinburgh Napier University, named in his honor.

The Moon even has a crater named after him, called Neper. In several languages, the natural logarithm and the mathematical constant e are named after him. In French, Spanish, and Portuguese, the natural logarithm is called Logarithme Népérien or Logaritmos Neperianos, and in Finnish and Italian, the constant e is known as Neperin luku and Numero di Nepero.

Family

In 1572, John Napier married a young girl named Elizabeth, who was only 16. She was the daughter of James Stirling, the Laird of Keir and Cadder. They had two children together, but Elizabeth passed away in 1579. Napier then married again, this time to Agnes Chisholm, and they had ten more children.

Napier's father-in-law, Sir James Chisholm, was involved in a plot that led to him being excommunicated, or officially banned, by a group of church leaders. Napier was part of this group and asked the king, James VI and I, to make sure the punishment happened, but the king did not agree and preferred a more peaceful approach. Napier also had a half-brother named Alexander Napier, who was known as Lord Laurieston.

List of works

John Napier wrote several important books. In 1593, he wrote A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John. In 1614, he published Mirifici logarithmorum canonis descriptio. An English translation by Edward Wright came out in 1616. After he passed away in 1617, his book Rabdologiæ seu Numerationis per Virgulas libri duo was released. Another work, Mirifici logarithmorum canonis constructio, was written earlier but published posthumously by his son Robert in 1619. Much later, in 1839, De arte logistica was published.