Our 48th meeting will be held on Friday-Saturday, January 31 & February 1, 2025, at Northern Kentucky University. At this meeting, we will read the opening chapters of Henry Briggs' Arithmetica Logarithmica (1628). When Briggs, who was the first Professor of Geometry at the newly founded Gresham College in London, learned of the publication by John Napier in 1614 of Napier's invention of logarithms, he endeavored to meet in person that very year with Napier at the laird's estate just outside Edinburgh, Scotland. Napier was not a mathematical scholar, so Briggs' training helped him to simplify considerably the construction and utility of this powerful invention. These improvements, together with an extensive set of tables of logarithms were published by Briggs in the work we will be reading.
At this meeting, we plan to read the first nine chapters of Arithmetica Logarithmica (which has 32 chapters in total). Australian Ian Bruce, a self-proclaimed "mathematical hobbyist," has published online many translations from the Latin of 17th and 18th century mathematical works; he has a full translation of the Arithmetica Logarithmica. But Danny Otero, co-organizer of ORESME, has prepared his own translation of the first seven chapters, using this edition available at the Internet Archive. Both translations will be used as resources:
- Henry Briggs, Arithmetica Logarithmica (1628), Chapters I-VII. Trans. by Daniel E. Otero, 2025.
- ---, (entire work). Trans. by Ian Bruce at the website, 17thcenturymaths.com.
In addition, we may also dip into this auxiliary piece, an article by an historian of computer science and computation about Briggs' methods of computation:
Submissions from 1628
Arithmetica Logarithmica, Henry Briggs and Daniel E. Otero
