Talk:John Napier

Astrology?

"The way was opened to later scientific advances, in astronomy, dynamics, physics; and also in astrology." WTF? That measly semicolon should at the very least be a period and perhaps then there could be a passing mention of astrology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.174.246.169 (talk) 13:49, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Hyperbole

I think "undoubtedly one of the most important inventions in math" and "in line with Archimedes, Newton, Einstein" is slightly exaggerated. Logarithms are an important contribution, no doubt. Maybe we could reduce the hyperbole though. --AxelBoldt

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I think he also wrote some religious treatises. Extreme Calvinist stuff i think. Don't how how important that was considered at the time.

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I thought that the decimal point was first invented by Simon Stevin. See http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Stevin.html for example. -- Dominus 15:05, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The Simon Stevin page says he didn't, but it credits Bartholomaeus Pitiscus with the invention of the decimal point. -- Dominus 15:07, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Nearly every major mathmatical discovery has been "discovered" at least twice. He may well have "discovered" it.

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--Gunter 03:58, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC) Didn't Joost Buerghi (Switzerland) developed the Logarithm table in 1588? This preceeds Napier.

Spellings

Is Napier = Neper ? What is the explanation for the two spellings?

The name "Napier" predates systematized spelling in English. John Napier spelled his name variously as Nepair, Naipper, Naper, Neper, Napper, Napeir, and Napare. See the Great Vowel Shift for a more detailed explanation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by LeeNapier (talk • contribs) 18:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

OED Quotes Briggs writing "Napper, Lord of Markinston" —DIV (128.250.80.15 (talk) 04:17, 7 April 2008 (UTC))

john napier

John Napier popularized the decimal, not invented it! and Napier and Neper are the same thing, just one is in a different language... Personal life: The page writes: In 1571, Napier turned 21 and returned to Scotland. The following year he married Elizabeth Stirling, daughter of Scottish mathematician James Stirling (1692-1770), and bought a castle at Gartness in 1574.

There is something that does not add up here. Napier 21 year old in 1571 married the daughter of a man born some 120 year later. Someone who has better information on this needs to fix the science fiction. Bardurbroddi (talk) 23:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct, she was the daughter of an entirely different James Stirling. Thank you for bringing this to light. -LeeNapier (talk) 14:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

and he was gay —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.21.123.8 (talk) 13:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 2006

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was to move the page back

John Napier (mathematician) → John Napier – Move back to original spot. This article was moved a few days ago to "disambiguate" it from an obscure academic. Every link to John Napier is about this highly notable mathematician and inventor, not the other one. It is as if somebody called "William Shakespeare" got elected as mayor of Chislehurst, and somebody moved the William Shakespeare article to William Shakespeare (writer)! Let's get some perspective back.

Voting

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

• Support --Mais oui! 12:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support -- Per nom. Duja 12:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support per Mais oui! --Cactus.man ✍ 13:19, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support--Major historical figures should not be disambiguated every time their name conflicts wtih some minor figure; a For other John Napiers see... would suffice.--agr 15:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom. It's not even as though links to the (now disambig) page have been changed. _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 16:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Gene Nygaard 01:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

• Comment I've just had a quick check: there are 76 links to John Napier [1] (now of course a disambiguation page). As far as I can make out, every single one of them is about this guy and not the other one. To make matters worse, the User who moved this page has not even had the courtesy to go round even starting to try to fix all those 76 broken links.--Mais oui! 12:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Trivia

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in including these two little titbits in the article - He was nicknamed "Marvellous Mercheston" as he was born in Mercheston tower and he died of gout.--Crestville 13:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Vote completed

Consensus for a move back to John Napier demonstrated. -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Trivia

Trivia

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in including these two little titbits in the article - He was nicknamed "Marvellous Mercheston" as he was born in Mercheston tower and he died of gout.--Crestville 13:49, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a fun little thing to introduce into the body text, but is there a reliable source for the nickname? (i.e. where did you read/hear that?) – Kieran T ^{(talk | contribs)} 13:53, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I heared it on a segment called "Dead of the Night" on the Geoff Show on virgin radio. However, there are also sources here, here and here. I also found it interesting that people at the time belived his to be something of a magician. In retrospect, though, I think he was called "marvellous merchiston, not becuase of where he was born but because he was Laird of Merchiston--Crestville 18:37, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Lord Napier

I've been told by my DiffEQ Professor that the natural logarithm was named after Lord Napier (ln), can anybody confirm this? —Dispenser 03:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Look here. - LeeNapier 19:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Maths

Logarithms are a lot more than calculation tables... This section needs a lot of work!--Jack Upland (talk) 04:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Cleaning up

The anecdotes look like typical folklore that gets attached to a famous name. They really need much better sources than at present.

There were several strands in Napier's life, as the DNB makes plain. He was a landowner. He was a religious writer, an interest dating back to his university days. And as well as being a mathematician, he was a practical and theoretical engineer. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:13, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Mathematician?

I was under the impression he was a mathematician who made several important discoveries relating to math. Why isnt there a section detailing these most important aspects of John Napier. Omegastar (talk) 11:05, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Because this article was vandalised on 16 Dec 2009 and no-one spotted it til today. Classic wiki-negligence: the vandals run rings around the conscientious editors. --Mais oui! (talk) 10:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move opposed, page not moved  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 01:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

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John Napier → John Napier of Merchistoun —

• Not the overwhelming primary meaning vs. those listed in John Napier (disambiguation) 108.1.72.28 (talk) 01:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
• Object the mathematician seems to be most prominent 70.29.210.242 (talk) 06:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose move Napier most important Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 04:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
• Object. If the proposer is serious, then I strongly suggest that they log in to their usual account. Single-edit ip adresses are rarely taken seriously. --Mais oui! (talk) 09:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Link towards the LOCOMAT collection

Do you think it appropriate to add a link towards my locomat (http://www.loria.fr/~roegel/locomat.html) collection of reconstructions of mathematical tables? It contains full analyses and reconstructions of Napier' tables.Roegel (talk) 19:02, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Web Links??

"and the method of their construction...can be found on the web". Not by me. I removed this phrase after a fruitless web search. If indeed the "and the method of their construction" is on the web then please put this phrase back into the article with the proper reference. Thanks.

Nick Beeson (talk) 00:43, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

The modern translation of Napier's original works (which are in Latin and are openly available on the web as well) is at http://17centurymaths.com/contents/napiercontents.html

The original works Mirifici logarithmorum canonis constructio and Mirifici logarithmorum canonis descriptio contain not only the description of how logarithms work, but also how he figured it out. Hope this helps. LeeNapier (talk) 14:03, 30 March 2011 (UTC)