John Napier
1550 CE–1617 CE · Merchiston Tower
John Napier of Merchiston ( NAY-pee-ər; Latinized as Ioannes Neper; 1 February 1550 – 4 April 1617), nicknamed Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish landowner known as a mathematician, physicist and astronomer. He was the 8th Laird of Merchiston. Napier is best known as the discoverer of logarithms. He also invented the Napier's bones calculating device and popularised the use of the decimal point in arithmetic. Napier's birthplace, Merchiston Tower in Edinburgh, is now part of the facilities of Edinburgh Napier University. There is a memorial to him at St Cuthbert's Parish Church at the west end of Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh.
Adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the map →
Merchiston Tower
We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with John Napier’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with John Napier’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Scientists
- Jyeṣṭhadeva· 1500 CE–1575 CE
- Girolamo Cardano· 1501 CE–1576 CE
- Gerardus Mercator· 1512 CE–1594 CE
- Georg Joachim Rheticus· 1514 CE–1574 CE
- Andreas Vesalius· 1514 CE–1564 CE
- Conrad Gessner· 1516 CE–1565 CE
- Li Shizhen· 1518 CE–1593 CE
- Ulisse Aldrovandi· 1522 CE–1605 CE
- Rafael Bombelli· 1526 CE–1572 CE
- Abraham Ortelius· 1527 CE–1598 CE
- François Viète· 1540 CE–1603 CE
- Simon Stevin· 1548 CE–1620 CE
- Francis Bacon· 1561 CE–1626 CE
- Henry Briggs· 1561 CE–1630 CE
- Xu Guangqi· 1562 CE–1633 CE
- Galileo Galilei· 1564 CE–1642 CE
- Johannes Kepler· 1571 CE–1630 CE
- William Harvey· 1578 CE–1657 CE
- Willebrord Snell· 1580 CE–1626 CE
- Marin Mersenne· 1588 CE–1648 CE
- Pierre Gassendi· 1592 CE–1655 CE
- René Descartes· 1596 CE–1650 CE
- Bonaventura Cavalieri· 1598 CE–1647 CE
- Evangelista Torricelli· 1608 CE–1647 CE
Islamic world
Jewish world
Christian world
Luminaries & Explorers world
Rulers world
- Powhatan (Wahunsenacawh)· 1547 CE–1618 CE
- Mehmed III· 1566 CE–1603 CE
- Naresuan the Great· 1555 CE–1605 CE
- Tokugawa Ieyasu· 1543 CE–1616 CE
- Boris Godunov· 1552 CE–1605 CE
- Feodor I· 1557 CE–1598 CE
- Wanli Emperor· 1563 CE–1620 CE
- Akbar the Great· 1542 CE–1605 CE
- Murad III· 1546 CE–1595 CE
- Jahangir· 1569 CE–1627 CE
- Maharana Pratap· 1540 CE–1597 CE
- Elizabeth I· 1533 CE–1603 CE
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi· 1537 CE–1598 CE
- Shah Abbas I the Great· 1571 CE–1629 CE
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.