Modern Instruments and Methods of Calculation. A Handbook of the Napier Tercentenary Exhibition.

HORSBURGH, Ellice Martin (ed.).

Published by London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd; Royal Society of Edinburgh, [1914]

About this Item

First edition of "the best description of the machines, instruments and techniques used for calculation prior to World War I" (Tomash & Williams). This copy is from the library of the physicist and radio pioneer William Eccles (1875-1966), with his ownership signature on the front pastedown. The Napier Tercentenary Exhibition, held in July 1914, marked the anniversary of the 17th-century mathematician John Napier's discovery of logarithms and the invention of his calculating device, the "Napier's Bones". Horsburgh (1870-1935), a lecturer at Edinburgh, was commissioned to compile this guidebook to accompany the display, which tracked the development of similar devices since Napier's time. The immanent outbreak of the First World War cut the event short. "A great many technical changes, such as the ever-increasing use of punched-car accounting machines, were to cause computing to assume a difference character in the time between the two World Wars. Thus the Handbook should be viewed as a report on the state of the art just before these changes were to begin taking place" (Origins of Cyberspace). Two versions were issued simultaneously: in wrappers, to be distributed to delegates, and in cloth, as here. Aside from their title pages, the two issues are identical. Tomash & Williams H166; Origins of Cyberspace 323. Large octavo. With 7 half-tone plates, 16 pp. of publisher's advertisements. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, covers framed in blind. Bookseller's ticket of Deighton, Bell & Co., Cambridge, on front pastedown. Spine faded, wear to extremities, faint foxing: a very good copy.

Seller Inventory # 187975

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Modern Instruments and Methods of Calculation. A Handbook of the Napier Tercentenary Exhibition.
• Publisher: London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd; Royal Society of Edinburgh, [1914]
• Edition: 1st Edition