The Daring Invention of Logarithm Tables: How Jost Burgi, John Napier, and Henry Briggs simplified arithmetic and started the computing revolution

In the early 17th century, both Jost Burgi and John Napier dared to invent a logarithm table whose construction required tens of thousands of computing steps. These tables reduced computing effort for multiplication and division by an order of magnitude. Indeed, their invention launched a computing revolution that continues to this day.

The book tells the story of Burgi’s and Napier’s work, and how Henry Briggs built on Napier’s idea, creating a table of logarithms that was easier to use.

John Napier and Henry Briggs described their methods in detail; distribution of their results was widespread.

In contrast, Jost Burgi did not leave detailed records of his work. Just a few copies of his table and terse handwritten instructions for its use have survived.

To fill this gap, the book reconstructs Burgi’s thinking leading up to his table. The reader looks over his shoulder, so to speak, and learns how Burgi came upon the idea, how he decided on the specific format of the table, and how his instructions should be interpreted. And so the reader experiences the magic of the invention of logarithms.

The final chapters examine the question Who invented logarithms? . For centuries, few people were aware of Burgi’s work; John Napier was considered to be the sole inventor. This changed at the middle of the 19th century when Jost Burgi’s work became more widely known.

Since then there has been extensive debate whether Burgi should be considered an independent co-inventor. Careful parsing of the history of logarithm going back to Archimedes of antiquity then reveals that, without doubt, John Napier and Jost Burgi are independent co-inventors of logarithms.