self catering tayside
 |
 |
 |
 |
self catering tayside, scotland, holiday accommodation tayside, hotel lodging aberfeldy, guest house perthshire, self catering tayside
Besides dabbling in sciences which had no foundation in nature, Napier addicted himself to certain speculations which have always been considered as just hovering between the possible and the impossible, a number of which he disclosed in 1596 to Anthony Bacon, the brother of the more celebrated philosopher of that name. One of these schemes was for a burning mirror, similar to that of Archimedes, for setting fire to ships; another was for a mirror to produce the same effects by a material fire; a third for an engine which should send forth such quantities of shot in all directions as to clear everything in its neighbourhood; and so forth. In fact, Napier’s seems to have been one of those active and excursive minds, which are sometimes found to spend a whole life in projects and speculations without producing a single article of real utility, and in other instances hit upon one or two things, perhaps, of the highest order of usefulness. As he advanced in years, he seems to have gradually forsaken wild and hopeless projects, and applied himself more and more to the useful sciences. In 1596, he is found suggesting the use of salt in improving land; an idea probably passed over in his own time as chimerical, but revived in the present age with good effect. No more is heard of him till, in 1614, he astonished the world by the publication of his book of logarithms. He is understood to have devoted the intermediate time to the study of astronomy, a science then reviving to a new life, under the auspices of Kepler and Galileo, the former of whom dedicated his Ephemerides to Napier, considering him as the greatest man of his age in the particular department to which he applied his abilities.
"The demonstrations, problems, and calculations of astronomy, most commonly involve some one or more of the cases of trigonometry, or that branch of mathematics, which, from certain parts, whether sides or angles, of a triangle being given, teaches how to find the others which are unknown. On this account, trigonometry, both plane and spherical, engaged much of Napier’s thoughts; and he spent a great deal of his time in endeavouring to contrive some methods by which the operations in both might be facilitated. Now, these operations, the reader, who may be ignorant of mathematics, will observe, always proceed by geometrical ratios, or proportions. Thus, if certain lines be described in or about a triangle, one of these lines will bear the same geometrical proportion to another, as a certain side of the triangle does to a certain other side. Of the four particulars thus arranged, three must be known, and then the fourth will be found by multiplying together certain two of those known, and dividing the product by the other. This rule is derived from the very nature of geometrical proportion, but it is not necessary that we should stop to demonstrate here how it is deduced. It will be perceived, however, that it must give occasion, in solving the problems of trigonometry, to a great deal of multiplying and dividing—operations which, as everybody knows, become very tedious whenever the numbers concerned are large; and they are generally so in astronomical calculations.