📶 History of Logarithms
History of Logarithms a book which explores the origins and evolution of logarithms and computational rule through key figures such as Napier, Bürgi and Briggs.
📕 The History of Logarithms
Article: https://www.pavybeloiu.com/posts/history-of-logarithms/
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✍️ Introduction
This work is part of Beauty and Truth, a pursuit of mine for several years, ever since I began to think and dream of a more special book connected to art and mathematics. The invention of logarithms, the slide rule, and then the binary system led to progress, and calculations were simplified in all fields. These heroes of Mathematical Truth, found in the subdivisions of the ONE, were at the same time reverent and devout, and they loved the Lord. My writings, humble and modest, bring to light memories long forgotten, hidden in the dust of time and asleep in the fog of history.
Pavel (Pavy) Beloiu, native of Muscel and descendant of six generations of Moldavian priests (his father, Mihai Beloiu, was the last). Passionate about art and history, he sought to bring to light events and stories lost and unknown to today's readers. He combined engineering with painting, and later with writing and mathematics. He left for America in 2001 and still longs for his homeland and his friends back in the country.
🔍 Highlights
The origins of logarithms and their creators: Napier, Bürgi, Briggs
Rare insights into theological underpinnings of early mathematicians
Historical evolution of the slide rule and logarithmic tables
Connections between mathematics, scripture, and divine proportion
Personal reflections on learning, childhood, and creative longing
Original commentary on harmony, proportion, and geometric growth
Echoes of Romanian heritage and lifelong search for meaning
📖 Book Details
Title: The History of Logarithms
Author: Pavy Beloiu
Publication Date: June 22, 2025
Pages: 111
ISBN: 979-8289240095
Formats: Paperback, PDF
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📖 Download PDF Edition 👉 Buy Digital PDF
🧭 From the Foreword
“How can Beauty and Truth be united? Through this work, I attempt to answer this question by revisiting mathematical discoveries that were born in prayer, patience, and faith. The divine spark in geometry, spirals, and proportion leads not only to scientific clarity—but to wonder.”
“I discovered, too, that the longing for harmony in mathematics is the same as that in scripture. From logarithmic growth to the construction of the Tabernacle, these proportions echo the Word that became flesh.”
— Pavy Beloiu, United States, 2023
🗂️ Selected Topics
John Napier and the theological foundations of logarithms
Bürgi’s parallel invention and mathematical insights
Slide rules: circular, linear, symbolic
Logarithmic and trigonometric tables
Hyperbolas and logarithmic curves
The role of proportion and the number ONE
Biblical dimensions and sacred ratios
Reflections on forgotten pioneers and devotional intellect
👉 For the full chapter list, view the complete index below.
About the book of logarithms
I learned logarithms in school and did my first calculations with the mantissa and characteristics, which were in the tables at the end of the algebra book. I was amazed by the power of logarithms, which helped you, in a few minutes, to do any complicated operation, raising to power and radicals of any order. My older brothers had slide rules and showed me how to multiply with 7-digit numbers, in a few translations. What a miracle! I knew nothing about this secret, kept hidden in the tables, with 10 decimal places in textbooks. Then, in integral calculus, I saw that the base of natural logarithms is the mysterious number e, then I heard something about Napier and the logarithms, which bear his name. After 50 years, I asked myself the question, why did John Napier call them logarithms? What does logos arithmos mean, or the proportion of the number? Here are some questions, which find their answer, partially in my modest book.
Napier remained famous because his logarithms are called Napierian. Who are Bürgi and Briggs, who came after him? Here are other answers dug up from the dust of history. The world has forgotten them, who still studies logarithms? What is the slide rule, which took civilization to the heights of knowledge, until pocket calculators arrived? These pious people are still behind progress and civilization.
I have briefly reviewed the history of these mysterious small infinities, with bases around one. I have created the tables again one by one, starting with Napier, then Bürgi and Briggs. The divisions of ONE are fascinating and brought logarithms, trigonometric tables and later, small infinities, fluxions, as Newton called them. Gauss went even further and defined the circle with radius ONE in the complex plane. At 19 years old he solved the problem of constructing the regular polygon with 19 sides, which I will present in a future book. How are logarithms hidden in hyperbola and what is the connection between logarithms and the spiral of logarithms, discovered by Descartes?
Everything is linked to that universal ONE, which briefly defines the universe and especially a PERSON, which encompasses all the values of ONE: Jesus, the Son of God, the firstborn, the only one, the unique, is present on all pages of the Bible.
As a novelty, I presented the thoughts of 2 great Romanian Christian philosophers and thinkers, Noica and Moisescu, who discovered the secret of the pyramid of Cheops. I think the adventure of reading is fascinating and brings to light a forgotten history, which deserves to be known by us, those who benefit from the inventions of those mentioned above. I conclude with the column of infinity, by Constantin Brâncuși, which goes to the sky.
🧾 INDEX
John Napier and the history of the logarithm 6
Theological work 15
Napier's Kinematic Model 17
Logarithm and progressions 21
Napier's table 26
Jost Bürgi 27
Mathematical works-logarithms 33
Bürgi's table 43
Slide rule-circular 46
Sine function 52
Henry Briggs 53
Briggs' table 58
William Oughtred 59
Slide rule 63
Napier's and Bürgi's logarithms 64
Comparison of tables 66
Logarithmic and trigonometric table 71
Equilateral hyperbola and logarithm 77
Squaring the hyperbola 80
Gregory de Saint Vincent 84
Thoughts about logarithms 86
Duplicating the cube 89
Logos - logarithm and proportions 90
ONE 94
Constantin Noica-Mathesis 93
Vasilică Moisescu- Universal Harmony 102
Comments 107
Bibliography 111