B chapter.indd - Charles Babbage Institute - University of Minnesota

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204 Erwin Tomash Library Brewster, David Brewster, David a clergyman because of extreme nervousness in public speaking, he became a private tutor. He then edited the Edinburgh Encyclopedia for twenty-two years before becoming principal of Edinburgh University (1859– 1868)—an institution that had earlier refused him the chair of mathematics. The term natural magic in the title arises from natural philosophy, a term used in Scotland up until the 1970s— it was, for example, only then that the University of Glasgow changed the name of their department from Natural Philosophy to Physics. He was an admirer of Charles Babbage and strongly supported his attempts to construct a Difference Engine. This work describes optical and aural illusions, mechanical automata, chemistry, secret writing, etc. He mentions Babbage’s engine on pp. 291–296. Illustrations available: Title page B 249 Brewster, David (1781–1868) B 248 On machinery for calculating and printing mathematical tables. In Edinburgh Philosophical Journal Vol. VII Year: 1822 Place: Edinburgh Publisher: Archibald Constable and Co. Edition: 1st Language: English Binding: modern paper wrappers Pagination: pp. 274–281 Size: 211x132 mm Reference: Van S CBCP, #70; Babb CBLP #71, #73; Ran ODC, p. 405 Brewster presented this paper in Edinburgh as part of a concerted effort to obtain funding for development of the Difference Engine. Brewster indicates that his material was drawn mainly from Mr. Babbage’s printed letter on the subject (see Babbage, Charles; A letter to Sir Humphrey Davy, 1822). After explaining the concept of the difference engine, he describes the proposed implementation and concludes with a plea for financial support for Babbage. Illustrations available: Title page Journal cover, B 249 Brewster, David, editor See Babbage, Charles; On the theoretical principles of the machinery for calculating tables, 1823. See Babbage, Charles; Works of Charles Babbage M.A. F.R.S. &c. [A Collection of seventeen items by and about Babbage].
B 250 Briggs, Henry (1561–1631) Arithmetica logarithmica sive logarithmorum chiliades triginta, pro numeris naturali serie crescentibus ab unitate ad 20,000: et a 90,000 ad 100,000. Year: 1624 Place: London Publisher: W. Jones Edition: 1st Language: Latin Binding: contemporary reverse leather; rebacked; brown leather label Pagination: pp. [8], 88, [300] Collation: a–m 4 A–Q 6 R 4 4H 8 4I–4O 6 * 6 Size: 324x199 mm Reference: Pogg Vol. I, p. 298; DSB II, p. 462; Hend BTM, #18, p. 40; Horb CC, #38, pp. 33; Car PMM, #116, pp. 69–70 Henry Briggs graduated from Oxford with an M.A. in 1585 and remained there as a junior academic. He was elected as a Fellow of St. John’s College in 1589. In 1596, he was invited to be the founding professor of geometry at the newly created Gresham College in London, where he worked lecturing and creating navigational tables. Shortly after Napier published his Mirifici logarithmorum canonis descriptio in 1614, Briggs obtained a copy and immediately recognized their value for navigation and other computations. He began to teach them to his students and soon saw that they would be easier to use if the base was changed to 10. Briggs visited with Napier Erwin Tomash Library Briggs, Henry Briggs, Henry B 250 Briggs’ logarithms, B 250 in the summer of 1615 and again in 1616, and after the two men had agreed on the proposed changes, Briggs began calculating the new base 10 logarithms. Napier took no part in this work as he was not well and died the following year. In 1617, Briggs supervised the printing of a translation of Napier’s work produced by Edward Wright, who had also died shortly after finishing it. In a preface to this translation, he justifies the change to base 10 and includes a small table of logarithms of numbers from 1 to 1000 (the first chiliad). This volume contains logarithms for numbers from 1 to 20,000 and from 90,000 to 100,000. It took until 1624 to produce the table in this volume. Briggs did not start calculating logarithms in succession, but he used a number of critical logarithms (see illustrations) for 0, 10 1/2 , 10 3/4 , etc. to calculate the others. Briggs wrote a preface in which he explained how to use logarithms and gave a plan for calculating the missing 70,000 numbers—even offering to supply special paper divided into columns for anyone willing to help. He provided the difference between each adjacent value (see illustrations) and a method of calculating logarithms by interpolation from differences. The missing seventy chiliads were included in the second edition of this work published by Adrian Vlacq in 1628, although Briggs had, by this time, nearly completed the calculations himself. It was in the preface to this work that Briggs coined the terms characteristic and mantissa for the two portions (on either side of the decimal point) of a logarithmic number. Some copies of this work have an additional six pages containing the logarithms for 100,001 to 101,000 and a table of square roots from 1 to 200. This volume does not contain these extra pages, but they are to be found in another issue in this collection (see entry for Briggs, Henry; Arithmetica Logarithmica, 1624–another issue). These logarithms, together with those of Adriaan Vlacq mentioned above, form the basis from which almost all other logarithm tables were produced. At the end of the eighteenth century, the French produced the Tables du Cadastre, which are only available in manuscript form (see entry for Prony). Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Edward Sang (1805–1890) published a seven- 205
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