"It is probable... that the greatest inventor in science was never able to do more than to accelerate the progress of discovery, and to anticipate what time, "the author of authors," would have gradually brought to light. Though logarithms had not been invented by Napier, they would have been discovered in the progress of the algebraic analysis, when the arithmetic of powers and exponents, both integral and fractional, came to be fully understood. The idea of considering all numbers, as powers of one given number, would then have readily occurred, and the doctrine of series would have greatly facilitated the calculations which it was necessary to undertake. Napier had none of these advantages, and they were all supplied by the resources of his own mind. Indeed, as there never was any invention for which the state of knowledge had less prepared the way, there never was any where more merit fell to the share of the inventor."
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InventorsTheologians from ScotlandPhysicists from ScotlandMathematicians from ScotlandAstronomers from Scotland
Original Language: English
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John Napier
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