Napier's Bones

Made:
1690 in England and England and
Set of Napier's bones in boxwood, in a boxwood case Set of Napier's bones in boxwood, in a boxwood case Set of Napier's rods in boxwood case. England, United Kingdom Set of Napier's rods in boxwood case. England, United Kingdom

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Creative Commons LicenseThis image is released under a Licence

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License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library

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Creative Commons LicenseThis image is released under a Licence

Buy this image as a print 

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License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library

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Creative Commons LicenseThis image is released under a Licence

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Set of Napier's bones in boxwood, in a boxwood case
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Set of Napier's bones in boxwood, in a boxwood case
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Set of Napier's rods in boxwood case. England, United Kingdom
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Set of Napier's rods in boxwood case. England, United Kingdom
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Set of Napier's rods in boxwood case, made in England by an unknown maker, about 1690.

John Napier (1550-1617), discoverer of logarithms, designed this popular calculating tool known as Napier's cylindrical 'rods' or 'bones'. The 'bones' consist of a set of rectangular rods, each marked with a counting number at the top, and the multiples of that number down their lengths. When aligned against the row of multiples as shown, any multiple of the top number can be read off from right to left by adding the digits in each parallelogram in the appropriate row. Multiplication is thus reduced to addition and the bones can also be used for division and to calculate square roots.

Details

Category:
Mathematics
Object Number:
1905-111
Materials:
box (wood)
Measurements:
Overall: 57 mm x 95 mm x 20 mm, 0.08 kg
type:
napier's bones
credit:
Major-General H.P. Babbage