Abstract
Several German- and French-language resources contain brief biographies of Jost Bürgi (e.g., Cantor 1900; Lutstorf 2005; Montucla 1758; Naux 1966; Wolf 1858). No substantial personal information on Jost Bürgi exists in the English language, other than the short (just over one page) account by Nový (1970) in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography. We can, however, construct a decent timeline of Bürgi’s life from German-language resources (see Appendix A), particularly when it is situated with respect to Bürgi’s contemporaries who were engaged in or aided in the development of scientific work dependent upon the logarithmic relationship. Staudacher (2014) published (in German) a quite extensive account of Bürgi’s life, which included content on his mathematical and scientific achievements and contributions, as well as accompanying obstacles, family relationships, and other personal attributes. Using translations of Staudacher’s text, as well as more traditional sources of biographical information on Bürgi, the major aspects of Bürgi’s professional life are highlighted in the brief biography presented here.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Bürgi’s given name is sometimes given as Joost, Jobst, or Justus (when used with the Latinized version of his surname, Byrgius).
- 2.
Because I did not know other languages, the doors to the well-known scientists were not always open for me. So, opposite to the well-educated scholars, I had to think a little bit more by myself and find my own ways.
- 3.
In the sixteenth century, the professions of locksmithing and making clocks were closely connected.
- 4.
Dasypodius’ German surname was “Rauchfuss.” Rauchfuss followed the practice of his time and grecianized his name to “Dasypodius.”
- 5.
This is a newly discovered fact taken from the inventory list of Emperor Rudolf II’s Kunstkammer (i.e., a “collector’s cabinet,” which contains a collection of curiosities and treasures) in Prague (Staudacher 2014, p. 76).
- 6.
Several variations exist for Reimers’ name, some of which include Reimarus Ursus, Raimarus Ursus, and Nicolaus Reymers Baer. In this chapter, I will use Reimers.
- 7.
“…our clockmaker Jost Bürgi, who is almost on the way of another [a second] Archimedes” (Roegel 2010a, p. 5).
- 8.
Prosthaphaeresis, from the Greek prosthesis (addition) and aphaeiresis (subtraction).
- 9.
For a detailed discussion of this clock, see Gaulke (2015).
- 10.
Reimers must have kept his promise; he refused to divulge information about Bürgi’s “Kunstweg” (meaning artful (or skillful) method), because he had promised Bürgi to keep all of his (Bürgi’s) information confidential (Staudacher 2014, p. 181).
- 11.
This work came to be known as Bürgi’s Coss. The Coss manuscript was never delivered to a printer for publishing; it was finally edited and published in 1973 by List and Bialas. In 1604, Kepler wrote a letter to Fabricius, stating that he now had an understanding of the “Kunstweg” after having edited the Coss manuscript (Staudacher 2014, p. 181). However, Kepler did not mention his Coss editing work for Bürgi and therefore did not compromise the secrecy agreement he held with Bürgi.
- 12.
In the forward for Fundamentum Astronomiae , Bürgi gives the date “Prag, am Tage Mariae Magdalenae, Anno Christi 1592” (Folkerts 2015, p. 109), which corresponds to 22 July 1592.
- 13.
The data was accessible to Kepler from 1603 until 1612, when both Kepler and Bürgi were in Prague.
- 14.
The Canon Sinuum was never published and most likely remains lost. However, it makes sense that if Bürgi kept it on his person, others would have seen it and stated that it did exist.
- 15.
“The hesitant secretive [man] abandoned his child instead of raising it for the general benefit.”
- 16.
On this cemetery lies buried/the Landgrave of Hessen and/the Emperor’s watchmaker and mathematician/Jost Bürgi/born February 28th, 1552 in Lichtensteig, Switzerland/died January 31st, 1632 in Kassel/ingenious designer of measuring instruments/and celestial globes, builder of the/most precise clocks of the 16th century,/inventor of the logarithms.
References
Cantor M (1900) Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik, Zweiter Band, von 1200-1668, Zweite Auflage. B. G. Teubner, Leipzig
Faustmann G (1997) Jost Bürgis Progress Tabulen und die Entwicklung der Logarithmen. Acta Historiae Rerum Naturalium, New Series vol I. Prague
Folkerts M (2015) Eine bisher unbekannte Schrift von Jost Bürgi zur Trigonometrie. In: Gebhardt R (ed) Arithmetik, Geometrie und Algebra der frühen Neuzeit. Adam-Ries-Bund, Annaberg-Buchholz, pp 107–114
Gaulke K (2015) Perfect in every sense: scientific iconography on an equation clock by Jost Bürgi and the self-understanding of the astronomers at the Kassel Court in the late 1580s. Nuncius 30:37–74
González-Velasco EA (2011) Journey through mathematics: creative episodes in its history. Springer, New York
Grattan-Guinness I (1997) The rainbow of mathematics: a history of the mathematical sciences. W. W. Norton and Company, New York
Havil J (2014) John Napier: life, logarithms, and legacy. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Katz VJ (2009) A history of mathematic: an introduction. Pearson Education, Boston
List M, Bialas V (1973) Nova Kepleriana: Die Coss von Jost Bürgi in der Redaktion von Johannes Kepler: Ein Beitrag zur frühen Algebra. Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, München
Lutstorf HT (2005) Die Logarithmentafeln Jost Bürgis. Bemerkungen zur Stellenwert- und Basisfrage. Mit Kommentar zu Bürgis “Gründlichem Unterricht”. ETH-Bibliothek, Zürich
Montucla JE (1758) Histoire des Mathématiques, Tome Second. Henri Agasse, Paris
Naux C (1966) Histoire des logarithmes de Neper a Euler (Tome 1). Librairie Scientifique et Technique A. Blanchard, Paris
Nový L (1970) Jost Bürgi. In: Gillispie CC (ed) The dictionary of scientific biography, vol 2. Charles Scribner and Sons, New York, pp 602–603
Roegel D (2010a) Bürgi’s “Progress Tabulen” (1620): logarithmic tables without logarithms. http://locomat.loria.fr/buergi1620/buergi1620doc.pdf. Accessed 15 Mar 2013
Roegel D (2010b) Napier’s ideal construction of the logarithms [research report]. https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00543934. Accessed 7 Jan 2015
Sesiano J (1986) Dasypodius, Konrad. Nouveau dictionnaire de biographie alsacienne, 7
Staudacher F (2014) Jost Bürgi, Johannes Kepler und der Kaiser. Verlag NZZ Libro, Zürich
Thoren VE (1988) Prosthaphaeresis revisited. Hist Math 15:32–39
Volk W (2009) Zeugnisse zu Mathematikern (Monuments on mathematicians). http://www.w-volk.de/museum/grave30.htm. Accessed 8 Aug 2013
Waldvogel J (2012) Jost Bürgi and the discovery of the logarithms. Seminar für Angewandte Mathematik. ETH-Zürich, Zürich
Waldvogel J (2014) Jost Bürgi and the discovery of the logarithms. Elem Math 69(3):89–117
Wolf R (1858) Jost Bürgi von Lichtensteig. In: Biografien zur Kulturgeschichte der Schweiz. Orell Füssli, Zürich, pp 57–80
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Clark, K. (2015). A Brief Biography of Jost Bürgi (1552–1632). In: Jost Bürgi's Aritmetische und Geometrische Progreß Tabulen (1620). Science Networks. Historical Studies, vol 53. Birkhäuser, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3161-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3161-3_1
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-3160-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-3161-3
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)