27 Facts About John Napier

John Napier of Merchiston, nicknamed Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish landowner known as a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer.

John Napier is best known as the discoverer of logarithms.

John Napier invented the so-called "Napier's bones" and made common the use of the decimal point in arithmetic and mathematics.

John Napier's father was Sir Archibald John Napier of Merchiston Castle, and his mother was Janet Bothwell, daughter of the politician and judge Francis Bothwell, and a sister of Adam Bothwell who became the Bishop of Orkney.

John Napier had a property within Edinburgh city as well on Borthwick's Close off the Royal Mile.

John Napier describes two kinds of burning mirror for use against ships at a distance, a special kind of artillery shot, and a musket-proof metal chariot.

John Napier died from the effects of gout at home at Merchiston Castle at the age of 67.

John Napier was buried in the kirkyard of St Giles in Edinburgh.

John Napier was famous for his devices to assist with these issues of computation.

John Napier invented a well-known mathematical artefact, the ingenious numbering rods more quaintly known as "Napier's bones", that offered mechanical means for facilitating computation.

John Napier appreciated that, for the most part, practitioners who had laborious computations generally did them in the context of trigonometry.

Therefore, as well as developing the logarithmic relation, John Napier set it in a trigonometric context so it would be even more relevant.

John Napier delegated to Briggs the computation of a revised table.

Craig certainly announced the discovery of logarithms to Brahe in the 1590s ; there is a story from Anthony a Wood, perhaps not well substantiated, that John Napier had a hint from Craig that Longomontanus, a follower of Brahe, was working in a similar direction.

John Napier had an interest in the Book of Revelation, from his student days at St Salvator's College, St Andrews.

John Napier identified events in chronological order which he believed were parallels to events described in the Book of Revelation believing that Revelation's structure implied that the prophecies would be fulfilled incrementally.

John Napier did not believe that people could know the true date of the Apocalypse, but claimed that since the Bible contained so many clues about the end, God wanted the Church to know when the end was coming.

Some of John Napier's neighbours accused him of being a sorcerer and in league with the devil, believing that all of the time he spent in his study was being used to learn the black art.

John Napier told his servants to go into a darkened room and pet the cockerel, claiming the bird would crow if they were the one who stole his property.

Unbeknownst to the servants, John Napier had covered the bird with soot and when the servants emerged from the room, John Napier inspected their hands to find the one who had been too afraid to touch the rooster.

John Napier caught the pigeons by strewing grain laced with alcohol throughout the field and then capturing the pigeons once they were too drunk to fly away.

John Napier later computed a new table of logarithms to base 10, accurate to 14 decimal places.

An alternative unit to the decibel used in electrical engineering, the neper, is named after John Napier, as is Edinburgh John Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In 1572, John Napier married 16-year-old Elizabeth, daughter of James Stirling, the 4th Laird of Keir and of Cadder.

Elizabeth died in 1579, and John Napier then married Agnes Chisholm, with whom he had ten more children.

John Napier sat on the General Assembly that excommunicated the plotters, and petitioned the King James VI and I to enforce the punishment on the plotters, but was ultimately ignored since the King believed the ministers were acting cruelly, and was in favor of pursuing policies of more appeasement.

John Napier's half-brother was Alexander Napier, Lord Laurieston.