Henry Briggs (mathematician)
Encyclopedia
Henry Briggs was an English
mathematician
notable for changing the original logarithms
invented by John Napier
into common (base 10) logarithms
, which are sometimes known as Briggsian logarithms in his honour.
, in Yorkshire
, England. After studying Latin
and Greek
at a local grammar school, he entered St John's College, Cambridge
, in 1577, and graduated in 1581. In 1588, he was elected a Fellow of St. John's. In 1592 he was made reader of the physical lecture founded by Thomas Linacre
; he would also read some of the mathematical lectures as well. During this period, he took an interest in navigation and astronomy, collaborating with Edward Wright
. In 1596, he became first professor of geometry
in the recently founded Gresham College
, London
; he would lecture there for nearly 23 years, and would make Gresham college a center of English mathematics, from which he would notably support the new ideas of Johannes Kepler
. He was a friend of Christopher Heydon
, the writer on astrology. At this time, Briggs obtained a copy of Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio, in which Napier introduced the idea of logarithms. Napier's formulation was awkward to work with, but the book fired Briggs' imagination - in his lectures at Gresham College he proposed the idea of base 10 logarithms in which the logarithm of 10 would be 1; and soon afterwards he wrote to the inventor on the subject. Briggs was active in many areas, and his advice in astronomy, surveying, navigation, and other activities like mining was frequently sought. Briggs in 1619 invested in the London Company
, and he had two sons: Henry, who later emigrated to Virginia, and Thomas, who remained in England. The lunar crater Briggs
is named in his honour.
in order to discuss the suggested change to Napier's logarithms. The following year he repeated his visit for a similar purpose. During these conferences the alteration proposed by Briggs was agreed upon; and on his return from his second visit to Edinburgh, in 1617, he published the first chiliad of his logarithms.
In 1619 he was appointed Savilian professor
of geometry
at Oxford
, and resigned his professorship of Gresham College in July 1620. Soon after his settlement at Oxford he was incorporated master of arts.
In 1622 he published a small tract on the Northwest Passage
to the South Seas, through the Continent of Virginia and Hudson's Bay.
In 1624 his Arithmetica Logarithmica, in folio, a work containing the logarithms of thirty thousand natural number
s to fourteen decimal places (1-20,000 and 90,001 to 100,000).
This table was later extended by Adriaan Vlacq
, but to 10 places, and by Alexander John Thompson
to 20 places in 1952.
He also completed a table of logarithmic sines and tangents for the hundredth part of every degree
to fourteen decimal places, with a table of natural sines
to fifteen places, and the tangents and secant
s for the same to ten places; all of which were printed at Gouda in 1631 and published in 1633 under the title of Trigonometria Britannica; this work was probably a successor to his 1617 Logarithmorum Chilias Prima ("The First Thousand Logarithms"), which gave a brief account of logarithms and a long table of the first 1000 integers calculated to the 14th decimal place.
Briggs discovered, in a somewhat concealed form and without proof, the binomial theorem
. English translations of Briggs's Arithmetica and the first part of his Trigonometria Britannica are available on the web : http://www.17centurymaths.com
Briggs was buried in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford
. Dr Smith, in his Lives of the Gresham Professors, characterizes him as a man of great probity, a condemner of riches, and contented with his own station, preferring a studious retirement to all the splendid circumstances of life.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
mathematician
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
notable for changing the original logarithms
Napierian logarithm
The term Napierian logarithm, or Naperian logarithm, is often used to mean the natural logarithm. However, as first defined by John Napier, it is a function given by :...
invented by John Napier
John Napier
John Napier of Merchiston – also signed as Neper, Nepair – named Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish mathematician, physicist, astronomer & astrologer, and also the 8th Laird of Merchistoun. He was the son of Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston. John Napier is most renowned as the discoverer...
into common (base 10) logarithms
Common logarithm
The common logarithm is the logarithm with base 10. It is also known as the decadic logarithm, named after its base. It is indicated by log10, or sometimes Log with a capital L...
, which are sometimes known as Briggsian logarithms in his honour.
Personal life
He was born at Warley Wood, near HalifaxHalifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...
, in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
, England. After studying Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
at a local grammar school, he entered St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....
, in 1577, and graduated in 1581. In 1588, he was elected a Fellow of St. John's. In 1592 he was made reader of the physical lecture founded by Thomas Linacre
Thomas Linacre
Thomas Linacre was a humanist scholar and physician, after whom Linacre College, Oxford and Linacre House The King's School, Canterbury are named....
; he would also read some of the mathematical lectures as well. During this period, he took an interest in navigation and astronomy, collaborating with Edward Wright
Edward Wright (mathematician)
Edward Wright was an English mathematician and cartographer noted for his book Certaine Errors in Navigation , which for the first time explained the mathematical basis of the Mercator projection, and set out a reference table giving the linear scale multiplication factor as a function of...
. In 1596, he became first professor of geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
in the recently founded Gresham College
Gresham College
Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in central London, England. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham and today it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year within the City of London.-History:Sir Thomas Gresham,...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
; he would lecture there for nearly 23 years, and would make Gresham college a center of English mathematics, from which he would notably support the new ideas of Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican...
. He was a friend of Christopher Heydon
Christopher Heydon
Sir Christopher Heydon was an English soldier, Member of Parliament, and writer on astrology.-Background:Born in Surrey, Heydon was the eldest son of Sir William Heydon of Baconsthorpe, Norfolk, and his wife Anne, daughter of Sir William Woodhouse of Hickling, Norfolk...
, the writer on astrology. At this time, Briggs obtained a copy of Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio, in which Napier introduced the idea of logarithms. Napier's formulation was awkward to work with, but the book fired Briggs' imagination - in his lectures at Gresham College he proposed the idea of base 10 logarithms in which the logarithm of 10 would be 1; and soon afterwards he wrote to the inventor on the subject. Briggs was active in many areas, and his advice in astronomy, surveying, navigation, and other activities like mining was frequently sought. Briggs in 1619 invested in the London Company
London Company
The London Company was an English joint stock company established by royal charter by James I of England on April 10, 1606 with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America.The territory granted to the London Company included the coast of North America from the 34th parallel ...
, and he had two sons: Henry, who later emigrated to Virginia, and Thomas, who remained in England. The lunar crater Briggs
Briggs (crater)
Briggs is a lunar crater that is located in the western part of the Oceanus Procellarum, to the east of the large walled plain Struve. It lies to the northeast of the walled plain Eddington, and north-northwest of the crater Seleucus. The isolated position of this crater on the mare, near the...
is named in his honour.
Mathematical contribution
In 1616 Briggs visited Napier at EdinburghEdinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
in order to discuss the suggested change to Napier's logarithms. The following year he repeated his visit for a similar purpose. During these conferences the alteration proposed by Briggs was agreed upon; and on his return from his second visit to Edinburgh, in 1617, he published the first chiliad of his logarithms.
In 1619 he was appointed Savilian professor
Savilian Professor of Geometry
The position of Savilian Professor of Geometry was established at the University of Oxford in 1619. It was founded by Sir Henry Savile, a mathematician and classical scholar who was Warden of Merton College, Oxford and Provost of Eton College, reacting to what has been described as "the wretched...
of geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
at Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, and resigned his professorship of Gresham College in July 1620. Soon after his settlement at Oxford he was incorporated master of arts.
In 1622 he published a small tract on the Northwest Passage
Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage is a sea route through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways amidst the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans...
to the South Seas, through the Continent of Virginia and Hudson's Bay.
In 1624 his Arithmetica Logarithmica, in folio, a work containing the logarithms of thirty thousand natural number
Natural number
In mathematics, the natural numbers are the ordinary whole numbers used for counting and ordering . These purposes are related to the linguistic notions of cardinal and ordinal numbers, respectively...
s to fourteen decimal places (1-20,000 and 90,001 to 100,000).
This table was later extended by Adriaan Vlacq
Adriaan Vlacq
Adriaan Vlacq was a Dutch book publisher and author of mathematical tables. Born in Gouda, Vlacq published a table of logarithms from 1 to 100,000 to 10 decimal places in 1628 in his Arithmetica logarithmica. This table extended Henry Briggs' original tables which only covered the values...
, but to 10 places, and by Alexander John Thompson
Alexander John Thompson
Alexander John Thompson is the author of the last great table of logarithms, published in 1952. This table, the Logarithmetica britannica gives the logarithms of all numbers from 1 to 100000 to 20 places and supersedes all previous tables of similar scope, in particular the tables of Henry Briggs,...
to 20 places in 1952.
He also completed a table of logarithmic sines and tangents for the hundredth part of every degree
Degree (angle)
A degree , usually denoted by ° , is a measurement of plane angle, representing 1⁄360 of a full rotation; one degree is equivalent to π/180 radians...
to fourteen decimal places, with a table of natural sines
Sine
In mathematics, the sine function is a function of an angle. In a right triangle, sine gives the ratio of the length of the side opposite to an angle to the length of the hypotenuse.Sine is usually listed first amongst the trigonometric functions....
to fifteen places, and the tangents and secant
Secant
Secant is a term in mathematics. It comes from the Latin secare . It can refer to:* a secant line, in geometry* the secant variety, in algebraic geometry...
s for the same to ten places; all of which were printed at Gouda in 1631 and published in 1633 under the title of Trigonometria Britannica; this work was probably a successor to his 1617 Logarithmorum Chilias Prima ("The First Thousand Logarithms"), which gave a brief account of logarithms and a long table of the first 1000 integers calculated to the 14th decimal place.
Briggs discovered, in a somewhat concealed form and without proof, the binomial theorem
Binomial theorem
In elementary algebra, the binomial theorem describes the algebraic expansion of powers of a binomial. According to the theorem, it is possible to expand the power n into a sum involving terms of the form axbyc, where the exponents b and c are nonnegative integers with , and the coefficient a of...
. English translations of Briggs's Arithmetica and the first part of his Trigonometria Britannica are available on the web : http://www.17centurymaths.com
Briggs was buried in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford
Merton College, Oxford
Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...
. Dr Smith, in his Lives of the Gresham Professors, characterizes him as a man of great probity, a condemner of riches, and contented with his own station, preferring a studious retirement to all the splendid circumstances of life.
External links
- '400 Years of Geometry at Gresham College, lecture by Robin WilsonRobin WilsonRobin Wilson may refer to:*Robin Wilson eco-friendly lifestyle expert*Robin Wilson , science fiction author and former president of California State University, Chico...
on Henry Briggs, given at Gresham CollegeGresham CollegeGresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in central London, England. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham and today it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year within the City of London.-History:Sir Thomas Gresham,...
, 14 May 2008 (available for video, audio and text download)