Book Description
This handbook was published in 1914 to accompany the Napier Tercentenary Exhibition. It describes exhibits of all types of calculating machines, as well as mathematical literature, logarithmic tables, and objects of historical connection with John Napier, the man who discovered logarithms. It includes an account of Napier's life and times and gives a short description of how to use Napier's bones as well as more detailed descriptions of such measuring devices as. the abacus, slide rule, planimeters, harmonic analyzers, and differentiating machines. The material is illustrated with a large number of engravings, photographs, and diagrams. It is perhaps the best English language account of machines and techniques used for calculation before the first World War. The book is Volume III in the Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series and was first published by G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. ... Read more

Book Description
As the inventor of Logarithms, John Napier made one of the greatest advances in the history of mathematics in simplifying expression of figures. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

John Napier: Logarithm John
What there is of it is very good. Personally I'd have liked it better if it was expanded more. It might be nice to see more material about how to actually use logs in problem solving, or how logs were used in problem solving in the past.

John Napier by and large without his logarithms
The ordinary lives of famous mathameticians rarely prove to be as interesting as their professional activities and such is the case with John Napier. This slim volume is, at least to my way of thinking, a disappointment in that it provides only the most superficial insight into Napier's thinking concerning the period during which he conceived the idea of the logarithm and produced the first table of such numbers.
For centuries thereafter they significantly simplified the multiplication and division of large numbers. Until the advent of the scientific calculator tables of logarithms were in wide use. Napier's contribution was recognized for its value by the major natural philosophers of his day and an indepth presentation of this aspect of his life would be a worthy contribution to the literature. Napiers bones, an abacus like device without wires or beads is also rather poorly covered in the book. The bones were the precursor of the slide rule and may, indeed, be among the earliest forms of mechanical calculators. ... Read more

Book Description

Intended for all readers--including magicians, detectives, musicians, orthopedic surgeons, and anthropologists--this book offers a thorough account of that most intriguing and most human of appendages: the hand. In this illustrated work, John Napier explores a wide range of absorbing subjects such as fingerprints, handedness, gestures, fossil remains, and the making and using of tools.

Customer Reviews (3)

hands-down the best book on hands
This is a great book for anyone who loves hands, and appreciates how perfect a perfect hand can be. There is nothing like it on the market. In the evening, when I'm done reading Friedrich Hoelderlin, I like to relax with this book. It really helps me understand hands.

Outstanding!
This is a beautifully written book that I would definitely recommend to others without hesitation.

Good hands
This book is a fascinating account of the most "human" parts of the human body, the hands. Worth owning. ... Read more

Book Description
This delightfully written book tells the story of William John Napier, 9th Lord Napier of Merchiston, who was sent to China in 1834, not to stop the opium smuggling (by which all local officials profited hugely), but to seek a settlement between the British sea-traders and the Cantonese authorities. He was at once seen by the Chinese authorities as a dangerous spy - a 'Barbarian Eye'.

Although his attempts to find an agreement were unsuccessful, Lord Napier noticed a rocky island occupied by only a few fishermen's families, and guarding one of the world's finest harbours. Why not arrange to trade from here, rather than up river at Canton, where ships could be boxed in at whim? The island was called Hong Kong.

Based largelyupon Lord Napier's letters and journals, the book gives an admirable insight into the story of Western contacts over the centuries with China, as well as life in England and Scotland in the early 19th century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Concise, accurate history of Lord Napier
Priscilla Napier was a wonderful author, not only of the Napier family (which she married into, not descended from) but also of primate study (under the name PH Napier).She died early in 1999, and will be missed.Her books, including Barbarian Eye, were a result of her historicalresearch into the conditions and events which take place in them.Herhusband was in the Navy, so you can be assured that her use of navalhistory is accurate, and her descriptions of foreign places are bothstrange and true. Perhaps she does write with a kind eye towards her maincharacter, but which writer does not?

Being an account of Lord Napier's Travails in China
This book is about Lord Napier's mission to China, its subsequent failureand the unexpected founding of Hong Kong. As he sails off on his ownmission, the author interweaves in, between an edited version of Napier'sletters and diaries, stories of earlier attempts by the West (mainlyBritish) to make contact with China, and their relevance to anunderstanding of why Napier's mission was doomed from the start. This takesup about half of the book before Napier even lands in China. An attemptto recreate the exotic and mysterious Far East setting by invoking animpression of cadavers, unwanted babies and the mournful wailing of thedugongs (mammals) amidst the junks, warships and bustling trade activitiesall floating together in the bay of Hong Kong seems a little surreal.According to the author, the Chinese, bless their inscrutable littlehearts, will not lift a hand to assist strangers for fear of being drawninto a perverted world of Confucian logic of somehow contributing to thatperson's plight in the first instance. Nor was opium such an odiouscommodity in the 19th Century. And even if it was, Lord Napier was anenlightened and politically-correct gentleman (who wasn't?) but was unableto right things in his time. This is pure hokum and a bit of eye-washconsidering that the author is a direct descendant of Napier.There is nodoubt that Napier failed in his mission to liberalise trade with China butthe author's premise is that history should not pin all the blame forfailure on him alone. There was also the King of England, Lord Grey, therogue traders and of course, the inscrutable Chinese. ... Read more

Product Description
BRAND NEW leather bound book accented with gilt! ! Facsimile reproduction of original work. ... Read more

Book Description
"The tasks which fill'd beginners with dismay This little book has banish'd clear away. "

John Napier had already discovered and published an epoch­making treatise on logarithms when in 1617 he turned to "rabdology" or rod-reckoning as yet another means by which to confront the problem of simplifying the huge calculations involved in multiplication, division, and the extraction of roots. This first English translation of Napier's Rabdologia provides a clear and readable introduction to a group of physical calculating devices, which, long overshadowed by Napier's logarithms, have their own intrinsic interest and charm.

Book I describes the first device, a set of rods known as "Napier's Bones," which were inscribed with numbers forming multiplication tables and used in conjunction with pencil and paper. Book 11 presents a series of simple calculations that readers can solve by using the rods, and a series of tables of ratios useful for division. Napier then describes the second mechanical device for calculation, a forerunner of the modern calculator that he named promptuary or "place where things are stored ready for use."

The third device, similar to a chessboard, allowed calculations to be performed by moving counters around the squares. Observing that the numbers had to be represented in what would now be called binary form, Napier provides instructions for changing from ordinary to binary numbers and back again, a method that worked equally well for multiplication and division and that had a particularly elegant symmetry when applied to the extraction of square roots. ... Read more