Waarom heeft Napier het logaritme bedacht?

Waarom heeft Napier het logaritme bedacht?

gearts
Leerling bovenbouw havo-vwo - zondag 14 april 2002

Antwoord

Laten we het Napier zelf vragen. In Mirifici logarithmorum canonis descriptio (1614) schrijft hij:

Seeing there is nothing (right well-beloved Students of the Mathematics) that is so troublesome to mathematical practice, nor that doth more molest and hinder calculators, than the multiplications, divisions, square and cubical extractions of great numbers, which besides the tedious expense of time are for the most part subject to many slippery errors, I began therefore to consider in my mind by what certain and ready art I might remove those hindrances.

And having thought upon many things to this purpose, I found at length some excellent brief rules to be treated of (perhaps) hereafter. But amongst all, none more profitable than this which together with the hard and tedious multiplications, divisions, and extractions of roots, doth also cast away from the work itself even the very numbers themselves that are to be multiplied, divided and resolved into roots, and putteth other numbers in their place which perform as much as they can do, only by addition and subtraction, division by two or division by three.

Als je dit goed leest staat er dat hij graag af wilde van al die lastige vermenigvuldigingen, die delingen en dat worteltrekken. Logaritmen waren in eerste bedoeld om berekeningen te versnellen. Want zoals je ongetwijfeld gemerkt hebt is vermenigvuldigen in het algemeen veel werk...

Zie Logaritme (geschiedenis)

zondag 14 april 2002

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