[MR] John Napier of Merchiston

Garth Groff and Sally Sanford mallardlodge1000 at gmail.com
Wed Apr 4 02:06:05 PDT 2018


Noble Friends, Especially Fellow Scots,

On this date in 1617, Sir John Napier of Merchiston died of gout at his
home in Edinburgh, Merchiston Castle.

Napier was perhaps the first great Scottish polymath; he was a theologian,
a mathematician, and an alchemist. He is best known for the invention of
that savior of high school chemistry students, logarithms. While his
mathematical work describing logarithms was not published until 1614, he
was working on the problem as early as early as 1590.

Sometime in the early 1500s the Napier family split into the Kilmahew
branch (my direct ancestors both in fact and SCA fiction) and the Edinburgh
branch. Sir John was considered the chief of the family and the Edinburgh
Napiers were recognized as the senior branch.

A Wikipedia article about Sir John Napier can be found at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Napier . There is also an interesting
bio-sketch on the Clan Napier web site at
http://www.clannapier.org/johnlogs.htm .

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆


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