John Napier
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John Napier, also known as “Marvelous Merchiston,” was born in Merchiston Castle Tower in Edinburgh, Scotland in the year 1550. Johns father, Archibald Napier, married Johns mother, Janet Bothwell, sister to the Bishop of Orkney, in 1549 at the age of fifteen. Archibald was knighted in 1565 and appointed Master of the Mint in 1582. A letter from Johns Uncle, the Bishop of Orkney, to Archibald reveals what little we do know of Johns early years:
I pray you, sir, to send your son John to school; over to France or Flanders; for he cannot learn well at home nor get profit in this most perilous world-that he may be saved in it; that he may seek honor and profit as I do not doubt that he willÐ
Some say it is because of this letter to Archibald when John was only eleven years old that he was admitted to St. Salvators College in St. Andrews at the fragile age of thirteen. Johns mother arranged for him to live on campus in the dormitories and made an agreement with John Rutherford, the Principal of the University, to personally look after her son John. It is an accepted belief that John never graduated from St. Salvators since his name was never seen on any of the lists of students who are to receive degrees. Unfortunately, what little time he did spend at the University did not lead him to learn any sort of advanced mathematics; however, it was during his time at St. Salvators College that John began to take a passionate interest in theology.
John was born during a time in Scotlands history when the people were experiencing a religious conflict between Roman Catholicism, as backed and enforced by Mary Queen of Scots, and Protestantism. John and his father Archibald were both Protestants who supported the teachings of John Knox and James I. In 1593 under the preface “Ðfor preventing the apparent danger of Papistry arising within this IslandД John published what he considered to be his most important work, “A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John.” It is in this piece that he attacks the Church of Rome and claims that his calculations based on the Book of Revelations led him to believe that Pope Clement VIII is the Anti-Christ and the Apocalypse would reach Earth in about one hundred years, in either the year 1688 or 1700. As his first act to protect Protestantism, Napier sent a letter to King James VI begging for him to change his own religious ways as a means of getting the rest of Scotland to follow.
Let it be your Majestys continual study to reform the universal enormities of your country, and first to begin at your Majestys own house, family and court, and purge the same of all suspicion of Papists and Atheists and Neutrals, whereof this Revelation foretell that the number shall greatly increase in these later days.
Due to Napiers strong attack on Roman Catholicism and the outlandish accusations made, the some came to mistake his concern for some sort of mental illness. However, those who recognized John as an “enlightened” man knew his true ingenuity. One specific incident in Johns life stands out as a tribute to his genius.
During the time John spent living in his castle he grew increasingly suspicious of his servants, as it was thought that one of them was stealing from him. John devised a test to find out which servant was the culprit. Using his black-feathered rooster, he dusted the feathers on his roosters back with black lamp coal and placed the animal on a table in a dark shed. He then told his servants that the rooster was a clairvoyant of sorts and was able to identify which servant betrayed him with a single pat of the roosters back. He asked each servant to proceed into the shed, one at a time, and pat the roosters back. Knowing that the guilty party would walk through the shed without touching the rooster, John inspected the hands of each of his servants as they walked out of the shed and the one with the clean hands was identified as the moocher.
Little did others know, Johns genius extended far beyond that of clever tricks. When he had a chance to take a break from what he considered to be his full-time job of being a Theologian, John indulged in his hobby of mathematics.
Without a doubt John Napiers greatest invention that we can still appreciate to this day is the idea of the logarithm. His explanation