PRIORITY, PARALLEL DISCOVERY, AND PRE-EMINENCE NAPIER, BURGI AND THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE LOGARITHM RELATION

There has never been any doubt as to the importance of the logarithm, a mathematical relation whose usefulness has persisted in different aspects to the present day. Within years of their introduction, logarithms became indispensable for mathematicians, astronomers, navigators, and geographers alike. The question of their origins, however, is more contentious. At least two scholars, the Scottish nobleman John Napier and the Swiss craftsman Jost Burgi, simultaneously and independently produced proposals which embodied the logarithmic relation and, within years of one another, produced tables for its use. In light of this parallel discovery, we read, analyzed, and interpreted the texts of Napier and Burgi to better understand and contextualize the two distinctly different approaches. As a result, here we compare and contrast the salient features of Napier's and Burgi's endeavors and the construction of each man's tables of logarithms Through these details, we will query the focus on the issue of priority and pre-eminence when discussing the historical development of logarithms, and pose critical questions about the phenomenon of parallel insights and what they can reveal about the mathematical environment at the time they arose.