WOLFRAM NOTEBOOK

Napier's Bones

​
multiply
48
by
4
In the seventeenth century, John Napier invented a method to perform multiplication using small rectangular pieces of bone labeled with numbers. Select a digit
d
and a number
n
with at most four digits; to multiply them, put the columns with each digit of
n
at the top of the columns after the first. Each column consists of multiples of those top numbers by
d
, with digits placed in the corners of the squares. Go down the first column to the digit
d
. Look at the red rectangle to its right; to get the answer, add the digits between the diagonals as shown by the arrows.

External Links

Permanent Citation

Enrique Zeleny
​
​"Napier's Bones"​
​http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/NapiersBones/​
​Wolfram Demonstrations Project​
​Published: October 4, 2007
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