Important 1628 "Arithmetique Logaritmetique" by Vlacq, de Decker, Napier, Briggs

Item Details

A 1628 French language edition of Arithmetique Logaritmetique, ou, La Construction et Usage d’Une Table Contenant les Logarithmes de tous les Nombres de puis l’Unité jusques à 100000… published by Adriaan Vlacq with Ezekiel de Decker, expanding on the pioneering work of John Napier and Henry Briggs. This seminal mathematics work critical was to the development of logarithms. The work includes an early publication of the first complete set of modern logarithms from 1 to 100,000 to 10 decimal places.

Logarithms were invented by John Napier (Scottish, 1550-1617) and first published in 1614 in Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio (Description of the Wonderful Rule of Logarithms) with ninety pages of tables on natural logarithms. Henry Briggs (English, 1561-1630), after visiting Napier in 1615, proposed rescaling the logarithms to form base-10 or common logarithms. Together Napier and Briggs published the revised tables in 1617 in Logarithmorum Chilias Prima (The First Thousand Logarithms). In 1624, Briggs published his Arithmetica Logarithmica with logarithms for 1-20,000 and 90,001 to 100,000 to fourteen decimal places.

Adriaan Vlacq (Dutch, 1600-1667) and Ezechiel de Decker (Dutch, circa 1603-circa 1647) began translating the works of Napier and Briggs into Dutch, publishing Het eerste deel van de Nieuwe telkonst in 1626 and in the same year, de Decker published an excerpt of Briggs’ Arithmetica Logarithma under the title Nieuwe Telkonst.

A year later, Vlacq and de Decker completed Briggs’ tables, adding 70,000 values and with the table calculated to ten decimal places. The full table was first published in 1627 in Het tweede deel van de Nieuwe Telkonst under de Decker’s name acknowledging Vlacq. In 1628, Vlacq republished the table in Arithmetica logarithma sive logarithmorum chiliades tentum, pro numeris naturali serie crescentibus ab unitate ad 100000… and in French translation, offered here, which was published simultaneously or shortly thereafter.

Vlacq and De Decker’s Arithmetique Logaritmetique, building on the work of Napier and Briggs, is a foundational book for the development of logarithms, essential for the rapid development of science and engineering in the 17th century to modern day.

Condition

- foxing; covers scuffed and scratches throughout; staining and discoloration to pages; spine worn, fragile and beginning to tear near cap and tail, binding missing; corners and edges heavily bumped and worn; pages creased and worn.

Dimensions

Item #

ITMG253796