Several mathematician of the sixteenth century had been playing with possibility of coordinating arithmetical and geometrical progressions, mainly in order to ease the work with the complicated trigonometrical tables.
The most ingenious and enduring solutions was development of logarithms by the Scottish mathematicians John Napier in the early 17th century.
In 1614 the invention of logarithms burst upon the world with the publication of Napier’s A description of the admirable table of logarithms.
Publication of the system of logarithms was greeted with prompt recognition and among the most enthusiastic admirers was Henry Briggs, the first Savillian professor of geometry at Oxford and the first Gresham College professor of geometry.
Briggs proposed the system of common logarithms with base 10. From 1615 Briggs devoted the main part of his time to the construction of logarithmic tables.
Tables of logarithms were published first in 1620 by the Swiss mathematician Joost Burgi, who discovered logarithm independently of Napier between 1603 and 1611.
History of logarithm
