Jost Bürgi's \textit{Aritmetische und geometrische Progreß Tabulen} (1620). Edition and commentary. Translated from the German

DOI10.1007/978-1-4939-3161-3MaRDI QIDQ495607zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Kathleen Clark

Publication date 14 September 2015

Published in Science Networks. Historical Studies (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3161-3

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics in the 17th century (01A45) Collected or selected works; reprintings or translations of classics (01A75)

Review text

The book is devoted to the work of the Swiss mathematician Jost Bürgi (1552--1632) on logarithms, especially to his \textit{Aritmetische und geometrische Progreß Tabulen} from 1620. It consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 contains a biography of Bürgi as well as information on his mathematical contributions. In Chapter 2, details of \textit{Aritmetische und geometrische Progreß Tabulen} are given, in particular descriptions of the known copies of the work. In Chapter 3, one finds a complete facsimile of Bürgi's work, a corresponding transcription and an English translation with extensive commentaries. It should be added that there are given transcriptions of two manuscripts: the Graz manuscript and the Gdańsk manuscript -- this enables the reader to examine the differences between the two. The last chapter summarizes the author's perspective on two questions: who is the copyist of the Graz manuscript and what is the relationship between the Graz and Gdańsk manuscripts. There are also three appendices: (i) Bürgi's biography at a glance, (ii) Napier's argument and construction of logarithms and (iii) the tables of \textit{Aritmetische und geometrische Progreß Tabulen}. The book is closed by the references and three indices (names, places and subjects). The book was published in careful and nice way. It is a valuable contribution to the history of mathematics. It will be interesting not only for historians of mathematics but to all interested in the development of logarithms and calculating techniques.

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Cited in

(10)

• Jost Bürgi's methods of calculating sines, and possible transmission from India
• Jost Bürgi and the discovery of the logarithms
• Johan Rudolff von Graffenried (1584--1648), an \textit{unknown} ``compilator from Bern
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3922614 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 739673 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2064610 (Why is no real title available?)
• Priority, parallel discovery, and pre-eminence. Napier, Bürgi and the early history of the logarithm relation
• Tables of logarithms in Ljubljana in the time of Georg Vega's study
• A clockmaker's mathematics: a technology-based approach to the mathematical works of Jost Bürgi (1552--1632)
• How Bürgi computed the sines of all integer angles simultaneously in 1586

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