Understanding Napier's Bones

Download the Cover Sheet for this lab as an Adobe PDF. This can be used to record your answers to the questions in the lab.

Go to Understanding Napier's Bones at http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~greg/calculators/napier/

            Click and read the section "A Great Man."

            Click and read the section "All About Rods."

            Run the Java Demonstration.*

            Run the Java Simulation.*

*You may have trouble with the demonstration and simulation on some browsers.  If so, just skip to the next item.

Go to http://mathworld.wolfram.com/NapiersBones.html

      Read the information.

      Multiply 9 times 739 using the technique shown at this site.

      http://users.ju.edu/ssundbe/bones.html is another site that demonstrates how to multiply using Napier's bones. Which sites is the easiest to understand?

Go back to http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~greg/calculators/napier/

      Rerun the Java simulation, multiplying 39 times 739.

      Construct a set of Napier's bones and use them to multiple 39 times 739.