Henry Briggs

Henry Briggs (1561–1630) was an English mathematician who developed base-10 common logarithms and published tables that made logarithmic calculation practical.

Logarithm: A logarithm is the exponent to which a specified base must be raised to produce a given number. Briggs reshaped logarithms into a practical tool for reducing multiplication and division to addition and subtraction.
Logarithmic table: A logarithmic table lists logarithms of numbers so calculations can be performed without evaluating each logarithm afresh. Briggs’s extensive tables supplied the numerical values that made common logarithms usable in practice.
John Napier: John Napier was a Scottish mathematician who introduced logarithms in his 1614 work Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio. Napier’s original system inspired Briggs to propose the base-10 form now called common logarithms.
Slide rule: A slide rule is a mechanical analog calculator that uses aligned logarithmic scales to perform multiplication, division, and related operations. Its scales embodied the same conversion of multiplication into addition that Briggs’s tables supported.
Common logarithm system: The common logarithm system uses powers of 10 as the basis for logarithmic calculation. Briggs helped establish this system through his proposal to Napier and subsequent tables.
Common logarithm: A common logarithm is a logarithm with base 10. Briggs promoted base-10 logarithms, matching their arithmetic to the decimal number system.
Arithmetica Logarithmica: Arithmetica Logarithmica is Henry Briggs’s 1624 table of common logarithms for numbers from 1 to 20,000 and 90,000 to 100,000. This major work established Briggs’s system in a form calculators could consult.
Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio: Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio is John Napier’s 1614 book introducing logarithms and tables for calculation. Briggs encountered Napier’s system through this publication and developed a more convenient alternative.
Napier's bones: Napier's bones are numbered rods that assist multiplication, division, and extraction of roots. This earlier calculating aid used a different physical method from Briggs’s logarithmic tables.
University of Cambridge: The University of Cambridge is a university in England founded in 1209. Briggs studied and taught mathematics there before becoming Gresham Professor of Geometry.

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