Edmund Gunter (1581--1626)Edmund Gunter (1581--1626)Edmund Gunter's most important book entitled Description and use of the Sector, was first published in English in 1623. This has been described as ``the most important work on the science of navigation to be published in the seventeenth century." A sector is a mathematical instrument consisting of two hinged arms on which there are engraved scales which can be used to help with calculations. This is not a slide-rule; the single scale is used in conjunction with a pair of compasses. What makes Gunter's sector special is that it is the first mathematical instrument to be inscribed with a logarithmic scale to help solve numerical problems. In practice the points of the compass tend to damage the scales which reduces the accuracy of the instrument.
William Oughtred
(1574--1660)
William Oughtred was a clergyman and keen mathematician. He
is believed to have introduced the x symbol for multiplication in
his book Clavis Mathematicae (Key to Mathematics),
written about 1628 and published in London in 1631. This was a
very important maths text book at the time. Newton read and was
influenced by it for example.
He is now generally though to be the inventer of the slide rule.
Both straight and circular rules are described in a book with the
title ``The Circles of
Proportion and the Horizontal Instrument" London 1632.
There is, however, good evidence to suggest that Oughtred had made
his invention a number of years earlier and failed to publish
it.
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Richard Delamain (1600--1644) The disputethe true way of Art is not by Instruments, but by Demonstration: and that it is a preposterous course of Artists, to make their Schollers only doers of tricks, as it were Juglers: to the despite of Art, losse of precious time, and betraying of willing and industrious wits, unto ignorance, and idlenesse. That the use of Instruments is indeed excellent, if a man be an Artist but contemptible, being set and opposed to Art.Each accuses the other of stealing the invention. In one copy of circles Oughtred writes,
Circles of Proportion (1632)
I borrowed and perused that worthless Pamphlet [Grammelogia], and in reading it (I beshrew him for making me cast away so much of that little time is remayning to my declined years) I met with such a patchery and confusion of disjoynted stuffe, that I was striken with a new wonder, that any man should be so simple as to shame himselfe to the world with such a hotch-potch.It is generally believed that Oughtred and Delamain were independent inventors. Oughtred got there first but Delamain was the first to publish. Certainly Oughtred's circle of proportion is more detailed and versatile than Delamain's Mathematical Ring.
Circles of Proportion (1632)
There is little, if any, dispute that William Oughtred invented the rectilinear (straight) slide rule.
References