Nicholas Mercator

:A separate article is about the cartographer Gerardus Mercator, eponym of the Mercator projection.

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Nicholas (Nikolaus) Mercator (c.1620 Eutin-1687 Versailles), also known by his Germanic name Kauffmann, was a 17th-century mathematician.

Related Topics:
Eutin - Versailles

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Lived in the Netherlands (1642-1648); lectured at the University of Copenhagen (1648-1654); lived in Paris (1655-1657); Mathematics tutor to Joscelyne Percy, son of the 10th Earl of Northumberland, at Petworth, Sussex (1657); taught mathematics in London (1658-1682); became member of the Royal Society in 1666; designed a marine chronometer for Charles II; designed and constructed the fountains at the Palace of Versailles (1682-1687)

Related Topics:
1642 - 1648 - Copenhagen - 1654 - Paris - 1655 - 1657 - Royal Society - 1666 - Charles II - Palace of Versailles - 1682 - 1687

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Mathematically, he is most well-known for his treatise Logarithmo-technica on logarithms, published in 1668. In this treatise he described the following series, also independently discovered by Gregory Saint-Vincent:

Related Topics:
1668 - Gregory Saint-Vincent

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:log(1 + x) = x - rac{1}{2}x^2 + rac{1}{3}x^3 - rac{1}{4}x^4 + cdots

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It was also in this treatise that the first known use of the term natural log for the natural log appears, in the Latin form log naturalis; his use of this term is somewhat surprising, since it predates the development of calculus, in which the most natural properties of this logarithm appear.

Related Topics:
Natural log - Calculus

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