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Vlacq [Vlack, Vlaccus], Adriaan
- 1. Dates
- Born: Gouda, 1600
- Died: The Hague, late 1666 or early 1667
- Dateinfo: Death Uncertain
- Lifespan: 67
- 2. Father
- Occupation: Unknown
- The sources say only that he was from a well-to-do family. Nieuw Nederlandsch Biographisch Woordenboek says that the family had furnished many members to the city government.
- I accept the statement that they were well-to-do.
- 3. Nationality
- Birth: Dutch
- Career: Dutch, English, French
- Death: Dutch
- 4. Education
- Schooling: No University
- There is no mention of any university education.
- 5. Religion
- Affiliation: Calvinist (assumed)
- 6. Scientific Disciplines
- Primary: Mathematics
- With a local surveyor he translated and published the new concept of logarithms in the 1620's. In 1628 he published the first full table of logs to base 10 from 1 to 100,000, calculated to ten places. As nearly as I can find out, this heroic task has never been repeated. All subsequent log tables are copies of Vlacq's.
- In 1633 he also published tables of the logs of the trigonometric functions.
- 7. Means of Support
- Primary: Publishing
- Vlacq was initially apparently a bookseller who became a publisher primarily to circulate his tables.
- 1632-42: He had a book business in London but left because of the Civil War.
- 1642-8: He had a book business in Paris.
- After 1648 he moved back to The Hague where he lived from then on.
- 8. Patronage
- Type: Court Official
- The only suggestion of patronage is the dedication to Charles II of a royalist work, in English, which he published in 1652. The dedication is by Vlacq, not by the author.
- 9. Technological Involvement
- Type: Applied Mathematics
- His mathematical work is all directed toward facilitating computations.
- 10. Scientific Societies
- Memberships: None
- Sources
- Nieuw Nederlandsch Biographisch Woordenboek.
- J.W.L. Glaisher, "Notice . . . in Early Logarithmic Tables," Philosophical Magazine, 44 (1872), 291-303, 500-6, and 45 (1873), 376-82.
- D. Bierens de Haan, "On Certain Early Logarithmic Tables," Philosophical Magazine, 45 (1873), 371-6.
- J.W.L. Glaisher, "On Errors in Vlacq's Table," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, May and June 1872 and June 1873.
- Parts of a report on mathematical tables, Report of the 43rd Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held Sept. 1873, (London, 1874), 51-5, 63-4, 119, 141-2, 162-3.
- Compiled by:
- Richard S. Westfall
- Department of History and Philosophy of Science
- Indiana University
Note: the creators of the Galileo Project and this catalogue
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