Henry Briggs :: essays research papers

Henry Briggs     Henry Briggs was born in Yorkshire, England and attended St. Johns College in Cambridge. He graduated in 1581 and 1585 and became a lecturer of mathematics in 1592. In 1596 Briggs became the first professor of geometry at Gresham College in London. By 1615 he was completely assiduous in the study, calculation, and teaching of logarithms. He met with Napier and proposed improvements to the logarithmic system developed by Napier. Briggs helped publish some of Napiers work and wrote Logarithmorum chilias prima in 1617. Briggss major work was Arithmetica logarithmica in 1624. These tables of logarithms were useful tools for those performing large calculations. Briggs spent several years at Merton College in Oxford. He also composed a work on trigonometry (basically tables, both of the functions and of the logs of sines and tangents) that was left unfinished at his death.Thomas Smith, writing early in the 18th century, said that Briggs parents were "humble of course of instruction and rather slender of means." Humble of class could mean too many things to guess, but I take the slender means to state unmistakably that they were poor. Smith indicates that Briggs could not have attended Cambridge without pecuniary assistance from his college. Henry went to school in Cambridge, M.A. St. Johns College, Cambridge, 1577-85 B.A., 1581 M.A., 1585. And he left quite a few mathematical manuscripts that remained unpublished. Briggs also devoted some attention to astronomy and saw logarithms initially primarily as a device to aid in astronomical calculations. He published Tables for the Improvement of Navigation, 1610, and North-west Passage to the federation Sea, 1622. Briggs was consulted by the Virginia Company about the northwest passage, and from information about tides and currents he deduced the existence of such a passage.