Rabdology

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Rabdology
In 1617 a treatise in Latin entitled Rabdologiæ and written by John Napier was published in Edinburgh. Printed three years after his treatise on the discovery of logarithms and in the same year as his death, it describes three devices to aid arithmetic calculations.The devices themselves don't use logarithms, rather they are tools to reduce multiplication and division of natural numbers to simple addition and subtraction operations.The first device, which by then was already popularly used and known as Napier's bones, was a set of rods inscribed with the multiplication table. Napier coined the word rabdology (from Greek ραβδoς [rabdos], rod and λoγoς [logos] calculation or reckoning) to describe this technique. The rods were used to multiply, divide and even find the square roots and cube roots of numbers.
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)Download this dictionary
Rabdology
(n.)
The method or art of performing arithmetical operations by means of Napier's bones. See Napier's bones.
  

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), edited by Noah Porter. About

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