William Oughtred

William Oughtred, who lived from 1574 to 1660, was an English mathematician and Anglican clergyman who was the first known to use two logarithmic scales on separate sliding rods to perform direct multiplication and division, an invention credited to about 1622 as the slide rule, a priority disputed with Richard Delamain. He also introduced the multiplication sign and the abbreviations sin and cos for the sine and cosine functions. Born at Eton, where his father was a writing master, he was educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1596 or 1597 and MA in 1600 and holding a fellowship there from 1595 to 1603. Admitted to holy orders, he left Cambridge about 1603, became rector at Guildford and was instituted as vicar of Shalford near Guildford in 1605. He married in 1606 and had twelve children, two of whom, Benjamin and John, shared his interest in instruments and became watchmakers.