Notes on the Radix Method of Calculating Logarithms. (Continued from p. 150.)

Extract

A somewhat obvious simplification of Briggs’ logarithmic process was-discovered and given as one of three methods by Robert Flower in a rare small quarto tract, The ‘Radix a new way of making Logarithms, published in London by J Beecroft in 1771. Several tables of radices are given, the largest extending from r = 1 to 9 and n from 1 to 12 to twenty-three places.

Flower divides the given number, if necessary, by a power of ten and a single digit, so as to reduce the first figure to *9, and then multiplies by a succession of radices until all the digits become nines. The complement of the sum of the logarithms of the radices to the logarithm of the divisor gives the required logarithm. In some cases it is more convenient to multiply than to divide by a digit, the logarithm of the digit is then added to those of the radices and the complement to 1 taken.