John Napier is best remembered as the inventor of the first system of logarithms. A logarithm is the power to which a number, called the base, must be raised to produce a given number. Napier's work with logarithms was described in two Latin treatises, Mirifici logarithmorum canonis descriptio (1614; "A Description of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms") and Mirifici logarithmorum canonis constructio (1619; "The Construction of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms"). This work was immediately recognized by other mathematicians as a great advance. Three hundred years later, in an essay marking the publication anniversary of the Descriptio, P. Hume Brown wrote that Napier's most notable achievement "has given him a high and permanent position in the history of European culture."

Napier, the eighth laird of Merchiston, was born in 1550 at Merchiston Castle near Edinburgh, Scotland. He came from a line of influential noblemen and statesmen. His father, Sir Archibald Napier...