Content deleted Content added
Adam Mihalyi (talk | contribs) m →History: Wrong Leibniz :) |
Mathpriest (talk | contribs) →History: sources that credit Bürgi with the invention of logarithms |
||
Line 127:
==History==
{{Main|History of logarithms}}
The '''history of logarithm''' in seventeenth century Europe is the discovery of a new [[function (mathematics)|function]] that extended the realm of analysis beyond the scope of algebraic methods. The method of logarithms was publicly propounded by [[John Napier]] in 1614, in a book titled ''Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio'' (''Description of the Wonderful Rule of Logarithms'').<ref>{{citation |first=John |last=Napier |author-link=John Napier |title=Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio |trans_title=The Description of the Wonderful Rule of Logarithms |language=Latin |___location=Edinburgh, Scotland |publisher=Andrew Hart |year=1614 |url=http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/img/?PPN=PPN527914568&DMDID=DMDLOG_0001&LOGID=LOG_0001&PHYSID=PHYS_0001 }}</ref><ref>{{Citation|first=Ernest William |last=Hobson|title=John Napier and the invention of logarithms, 1614|year=1914|publisher=The University Press|___location=Cambridge|url=https://archive.org/details/johnnapierinvent00hobsiala}}</ref> However, there is evidence that [[Jost Bürgi]] invented logarithms as early as 1588, six years before Napier began work on the same idea.<ref name="folkerts">Menso Folkerts, Dieter Launert, Andreas Thom (Oct 2015). "Jost Bürgi's Method for Calculating Sines." http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.03180</ref><ref name="burgimactutor">MacTutor Article on Jost Bürgi: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Burgi.html</ref>
The [[common logarithm]] of a number is the index of that power of ten which equals the number.<ref>William Gardner (1742) ''Tables of Logarithms''</ref> Speaking of a number as requiring so many figures is a rough allusion to common logarithm, and was referred to by [[Archimedes]] as the "order of a number".<ref>R.C. Pierce (1977) "A brief history of logarithm", [[Two-Year College Mathematics Journal]] 8(1):22–6.</ref> The first real logarithms were heuristic methods to turn multiplication into addition, thus facilitating rapid computation. Some of these methods used tables derived from trigonometric identities.<ref>Enrique Gonzales-Velasco (2011) ''Journey through Mathematics – Creative Episodes in its History'', §2.4 Hyperbolic logarithms, page 117, Springer ISBN 978-0-387-92153-2</ref>
| |||