Edmund GUNTER (1581-1617)

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Edmund Gunter was a professor of astronomy in London.
In 1620, only six years after the publication of Neper, he had the idea, both simple and very ingenious, to make a ruler with a "line of logarithms" (line of numbers).
This principle is the basis of all logarithmic calculation instruments. This is to divide a line or rule in proportion to the logarithms of numbers. This graduation makes it possible to obtain, by direct reading (thus without using the logarithm tables), with a pair of divisors, the result of a multiplication or a division, of trigonometric calculations and also easily to determine proportions.