History from below

Mathematics, instruments and archaeology

Stephen Johnston

Museum of the History of ScienceUniversity of Oxford

Astrolabe by Erasmus Habermel, Prague, 1590s?

Inch scale, with numerals from 1 to 9 (almost) decipherable

Timber with a square cross-section (b = c), and for which the volume is to be determined

Leonard Digges, Tectonicon (London, 1556)

Leonard Digges, Tectonicon

Folding rule by Humphrey Cole, London, 1574

Leonard Digges, Tectonicon

Longport House carpenter’s rule, 1635

How to reckon up solid timber when b does not equal c?

Longport rule Square root table

Product 4 x 15 5 x 12 6 x 10Root 7,14 7,15 7,15

Product 5 x 16 8 x 10Root 8,18 8,19

Product 6 x 16 8 x 12Root 9,16 9,15

Square roots expressed in inches and twentieths

La Natiere wreck, St Malo

Samuel Sturmy, The mariners magazine, or, Sturmy's mathematical and practical arts (1669)

La Natiere wreck, St Malo: “1648 IC”

One foot carpenter’s rule

Whipple Museum of the History of Science University of Cambridge

Rule with board scale and timber and board tables, 1648Whipple Museum