Text a. John napier(1550-1617)

Writing about the middle of the eighteenth century, David Hume proclaimed John Napier of Merchiston as the ‘person to whom the title of a great man is more justly due than to any other whom his country ever produced’.”

John Napier was a Scottish mathematician and inventor. Napier is famous for creating mathematical logarithms, creating the decimal point, and for inventing Napier's Bones, a calculating instrument.

John Napier - Inventor

While better known as a mathematician, John Napier was a busy inventor. He proposed several military inventions including: burning mirrors that set enemy ships on fire, special artillery that destroyed everything within a radius of four miles, bulletproof clothing, a crude version of a tank, and a submarine-like device. John Napier invented a hydraulic screw with a revolving axle that lowered water levels in coal pits. Napier also worked on agricultural innovations to improve crops with manures and salt.

John Napier - Mathematician

As a Mathematician, the highlight of John Napier's life was the creation of logarithms and the decimal notation for fractions. His other mathematical contributions included: a mnemonic for formulas used in solving spherical triangles, two formulas known as Napier's analogies used in solving spherical triangles, and the exponential expressions for trigonometric functions.

In 1621, English mathematician and clergyman, William Oughtred used Napier's logarithms when he invented the slide rule. Oughtred invented the standard rectilinear slide rule and circular slide rule.

Napier's Bones

Napier's bones were multiplication tables written on strips of wood or bones. The invention was used for multiplying, dividing, and taking square roots and cube roots.

Napier's invention led directly to the slide rule, first built in England in 1632 and still in use in the 1960's by the NASA engineers of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs which landed men on the moon.

Exercise 2. Answer the following questions.

1. What is John Napier famous for? 2. What inventions did he propose? 3. What was John Napier’s contribution to mathematics? 4. What are Napier’s bones? How can they be used?

Exercise 3. Make all types of questions to the following sentence.

Napier also worked on agricultural innovations to improve crops with manures and salt.

Exercise 4. Translate from Russian into English.

Математик, изобретатель, десятичный знак, вычислительная машина, военные разработки, сельскохозяйственные разработки, дробь, вклад в, тригонометрическая функция, логарифмическая линейка, квадратный корень.

Exercise 5. Match up:

great	rule
decimal	contributions
calculating	point
improve	man
slide	crops
burning	instrument
mathematical	mirrors

Exercise 6. Translate the following sentences into English.

1. Джон Непер, шотландский математик и изобретатель, известен за изобретение логарифмических таблиц.

2. Непер также занимался военными и сельскохозяйственными разработками.

3. Главным событием в жизни Непера-математика было изобретение логарифмов и десятичная система счисления дробей.

4. В 1621 году Уильям Отред воспользовался логарифмами Непера при разработке логарифмической линейки.

Exercise 7. Give a summary of the text.

Exercise 8. Read and translate the text.