Vernier Scale - History

History

The vernier scale was invented in its modern form in 1631 by the French mathematician Pierre Vernier (1580–1637). Its use was described in detail in English in Navigatio Britannica (1750) by John Barrow, the mathematician and historian. In some languages, this device is called a nonius. It was also commonly called a nonius in English until the end of the 18th century. Nonius is the Latin name of the Portuguese astronomer and mathematician Pedro Nunes (1502–1578) who in 1542 invented a related but different system for taking fine measurements on the astrolabe that was a precursor to the vernier.

Read more about this topic:  Vernier Scale

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    ... all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.
    Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)

    Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of Nature.”
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

    The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)