Method of finding the sums of logarithms
Date
5 August 1668
Creator
Unknown, Artist
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p2
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 300mm
width (page): 210mm
width (page): 210mm
Subject
Description
In a letter (now lost) dated 3 August 1668, William Brouncker asked John Wallis for his method of finding the sums of logarithms, as mentioned in Wallis's letter to Oldenburg dated 8 July 1668 (EL/W1/50). This diagram is part of Wallis's method, as described to Brouncker in a letter of 5 August 1668. This was added to Wallis's review of Nicolas Mercator's Logarithmotechnia, as set out in his letter of 8 July and printed in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 3, no. 38 (August 1668).
Copies of the diagram can be found at RBO/4/005 and RBC/3/086.
Copies of the diagram can be found at RBO/4/005 and RBC/3/086.
Object history
At the meeting of the Royal Society on 16 July 1668, ‘Mr. Oldenburg produced a paper in Latin of Dr. Wallis, dated at Oxford July 8, 1668, commending Mr. Nicholas Mercator’s Logarithmo-technia, lately printed, and making the quadrature of the hyperbola universal to all hyperbolas, with a desire, that since by this means the quadrature of the hyperbola was now so complete, as that scarce a better could be expected, and this work perfected by members of the society, this letter might be entered in their Register-Book, the more effectual to declare the invention their’s [sic]. It was read, and ordered to be registered accordingly' (Birch 2:306).
Printed in John Wallis, 'Review (July 1668) of Logarithmotechnia Nicolai Mercatoris, and his own demonstration of infinite series', Phil. Trans. vol. 3, no. 38 (August 1668), pp. 753-64, with woodcut diagrams at p. 756.
Printed in John Wallis, 'Review (July 1668) of Logarithmotechnia Nicolai Mercatoris, and his own demonstration of infinite series', Phil. Trans. vol. 3, no. 38 (August 1668), pp. 753-64, with woodcut diagrams at p. 756.
Related fellows
John Wallis (1616 - 1703, British) , Mathematician
William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker of Lyons (1620 - 1684, British) , Mathematician
Nicolas Mercator (1614 - 2001, British) , Mathematician
William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker of Lyons (1620 - 1684, British) , Mathematician
Nicolas Mercator (1614 - 2001, British) , Mathematician
Associated place