Jump to content

John Speidell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by InternetArchiveBot (talk | contribs) at 08:29, 27 February 2020 (Bluelink 2 books for verifiability. [goog]) #IABot (v2.0) (GreenC bot). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

John Speidell (fl. 1600–1634) was an English mathematician. He is known for his early work on the calculation of logarithms.

Speidell was a mathematics teacher in London[1][2] and one of the early followers of the work John Napier had previously done on natural logarithms.[3] In 1619 Speidell published a table entitled "New Logarithmes" in which he calculated the natural logarithms of sines, tangents, and secants.[4][5]

He then diverged from Napier's methods in order to ensure all of the logarithms were positive.[6] A new edition of "New Logarithmes" was published in 1622 and contained an appendix with the natural logarithms of all numbers 1-1000.[7]

Along with William Oughtred and Richard Norwood, Speidell helped push toward the abbreviations of trigonometric functions.[7]

Speidel published a number of work about mathematics, including An Arithmeticall Extraction in 1628.[8]

References

  1. ^ John Aubrey; Andrew Clark (1898). 'Brief Lives': I-Y. At the Clarendon Press. pp. 230–231.
  2. ^ Kerry Downes; John F. Bold; Edward Chaney (1993). English Architecture Public & Private: Essays for Kerry Downes. A&C Black. pp. 28–. ISBN 978-1-85285-095-1.
  3. ^ E. W. Hobson (29 March 2012). John Napier and the Invention of Logarithms, 1614: A Lecture by E.W. Hobson. Cambridge University Press. pp. 43–. ISBN 978-1-107-62450-4.
  4. ^ Charles Hutton (1785). Mathematical Tables, Containing Common, Hyperbolic and Logistic Logarithms, Also Sines Tangents, Secants and Versed Sines, Both Natural and Logarithmic. Robinson and Baldwin. pp. 30–.
  5. ^ Florian Cajori (26 September 2013). A History of Mathematical Notations. Courier Corporation. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-0-486-16116-7.
  6. ^ Sir David Brewster (1819). Second American edition of the new Edinburgh encyclopædia. Published by Samuel Whiting and John L. Tiffany; also, by N. Whiting, New-Haven; A. Seward, Utica; S. Parker, Philadelphia; Wm. Snodgrass, Natchez; and I. Clizbe, New-Orleans 1819. pp. 112–.
  7. ^ a b Florian Cajori (1893). A History of Mathematics. Macmillan & Company. pp. 165–.
  8. ^ Augustus De Morgan (1847). Arithmetical Books from the Invention of Printing to the Present Time: Being Brief Notices of a Large Number of Works Drawn Up from Actual Inspection. Taylor and Walton. pp. 37–.