Mathematician, Sir William Oughtred by Guest Blogger John Faulkner

In mathematics when "x" is used as shorthand for "multiply" thank Sir William Oughtred. He was rector of the Surrey village of Albury from 1603 to his death in 1660. A Fellow of Kings College Cambridge he taught mathematics free to anyone interested in the subject. One of his many students was Christopher Wren, the acclaimed architect of St Paul's Cathedral. He authored mathematics text books and these had other familiar terms such as Sin and Cos for the first time. His books were used by scientists such as Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle.

Sir William Oughtred's greatest contribution to STEM however, was to invent the Slide Rule. Four hundred years ago this year John Napier invented Logarithms making mathematical problems easier to solve. Using this, Oughtred inscribed logarithmic scales on two sliding wooden strips creating a powerful and simple calculating device. A slide rule is about the size of a ruler. By sliding the scales and aligning your numbers quick calculations can be made. Until the introduction of computers the slide rule was a fundamental science and engineering instrument. A slide rule needs no electricity or software and because of their simplicity were used by NASA as computer backup for the Apollo moon programme. Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin took his slide rule with him to the moon and in 2007 it famously auctioned for $77,675.

So if you visit Albury remember that it was here, four hundred years ago, some of our common mathematical symbols were defined and a device invented that flew to the moon!

- John Faulkner

NEIL ARMSTRONG'S BIRTHDAY

On this day in 1930, Neil Armstrong was born. He was an American astronaut, and the first person to ever walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot and a University Professor. Before becoming an astronaut, Neil Armstrong was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean War during the 1950’s. When the war had ended, he earned his bachelor’s degree and became a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (which then became NASA), where he logged over 900 flights. Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962, and made his first space flight, as command pilot of Gemini 8, becoming NASA’s first civilian astronaut to fly in space. His second and last space flight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing in July 1969. During this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent two and a half hours exploring.