Henry Briggs

Henry Briggs, who lived from 1561 to 1630, was an English mathematician notable for changing the logarithms invented by John Napier into common base 10 logarithms, which are known as Briggsian logarithms in his honour. He also introduced the algorithm for long division in modern use, about 1600. Born near Halifax in Yorkshire, he entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1577, graduated in 1581 and was elected a fellow in 1588. In 1596 he became the first professor of geometry at the newly founded Gresham College in London, where he lectured for nearly 23 years and made the college a centre of English mathematics. After reading Napier's Descriptio he proposed base 10 logarithms in his lectures, visited Napier in Edinburgh in 1616 and 1617 to agree the change, and in 1617 published the first thousand logarithms to 14 digits. In 1619 he was appointed Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, and he was a committed Puritan.