A brief biography of Jost Bürgi (1552–1632)

Abstract

Several German- and French-language resources contain brief biographies of Jost Bürgi (e.g., Cantor 1900; Lutstorf 2005; Montucla 1758; Naux 1966; Wolf 1858). No substantial personal information on Jost Bürgi exists in the English language, other than the short (just over one page) account by Nový (1970) in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography. We can, however, construct a decent timeline of Bürgi’s life from German-language resources (see Appendix A), particularly when it is situated with respect to Bürgi’s contemporaries who were engaged in or aided in the development of scientific work dependent upon the logarithmic relationship. Staudacher (2014) published (in German) a quite extensive account of Bürgi’s life, which included content on his mathematical and scientific achievements and contributions, as well as accompanying obstacles, family relationships, and other personal attributes. Using translations of Staudacher’s text, as well as more traditional sources of biographical information on Bürgi, the major aspects of Bürgi’s professional life are highlighted in the brief biography presented here.