John Napier was born in February 1, of 1550 in the Merchiston Castle, and died on April 4, of 1617. John Napier was From Scotland. He was known as Marvellous Merchiston. John Napier studied in St Salvators College, St Andrews and the University of St Andrews. He was also interested in logarithms. Napier entered the university of St. Andrews at the age of 13 but his stay there appears to have been short, and he left without taking a degree. He was the invertor of Napier bones which helps calculate the products and quotients of numbers, also there is a crater on the Moon named after his called the “Neper”.

One thing John Napier created were the logarithms.  This were invented in 1614, logarithms allowed people to do more calculations in one hour than they could previously have done in one day. Logarithms could turn complicated multiplications and divisions problems into addition and subtractions. They are laid in out in logarithmic tables, popularly known as “log tables’’. Variations on Napier’s logarithmic tables were used until 1970s, when electronic calculators were made.

Another thing Napier created was the “Napier Bones”. Without this early ‘calculator’, the discoveries of others would have been delayed by years of long calculations. This was a device that was forerunner of the slide rule. He also made important contributions to spherical trigonometry, particularly by reducing the number of equations used to express trigonometrical relationship from 10 to 2 general statements.

Another thing Napier created was the Chessboard Calculator.  Napier’s chessboard calculator was significant in that it used a binary method of entering data. Each square on a chessboard had an assigned value. To represent the numbers needed for the calculation, you placed counters, similar to those use in ‘draughts’, on the relevant squares. The chessboard calculator could be used for multiplication and division and finding the square root of binary numbers.