STIFELS

, Stifelius (Michael), a Protestant minister, and very skilful mathematician, was born at Eslingen a town in Germany; and died at Jena in Thuringia, in the year 1567, at 58 years of age according to Vossius, but some others say 80. Stifels was one of the best mathematicians of his time. He published, in the German language, a treatise on Algebra, and another on the Calendar or Ecclesiastical computation. But his chief work, is the Arithmetices Integra, a complete and excellent treatise, in Latin, on Arithmetic and Algebra, printed in 4to at Norimberg 1544. In this work there are a number of ingenious inventions, both in common arithmetic and in algebra; of which, those relating to the latter are amply explained under the article Algebra in this dictionary, vol. 1, pa. 77 &c; to which may be added some par- | ticulars concerning the arithmetic, from my volume of Tracts printed in 1786, pa. 68. In this original work are contained many curious things, some of which have mistakenly been ascribed to a much later date. He here treats pretty fully and ably, of progressional and figurate numbers, and in particular of the triangular table, for constructing both them and the coefficients of the terms of all powers of a binomial; which has been so often used since his time for these and other purposes, and which more than a century after was, by Pascal, otherwise called the Arithmetical Triangle, and who only mentioned some additional properties of the table. Stifels shews, that the horizontal lines of the table furnish the coefficients of the terms of the corresponding powers of a binomial; and teaches how to make use of them in the extraction of roots of all powers whatever. Cardan seems to ascribe the invention of that table to Stiselius; but I apprehend that is only to be understood of its application to the extraction of roots.

It is remarkable too, how our author, at p. 35 &c of the same book, treats of the nature and use of logarithms; not under that name indeed, but under the idea of a series of arithmeticals, adapted to a series of geometricals. He there explains all their uses; such as, that the addition of them answers to the multiplication of their geometricals; subtraction to division; multiplication of exponents, to involution; and dividing of exponents to evolution. He also exemplifies the use of them in cases of the Rule-of-three, and in finding mean proportionals between given terms, and such like, exactly as is done in logarithms. So that he seems to have been in the full possession of the idea of logarithms, and wanted only the necessity of troublesome calculations to induce him to make a table of such numbers.

Stifels was a zealous, though weak disciple of Luther. He took it into his head to become a prophet, and he predicted that the end of the world would happen on a certain day in the year 1553, by which he terrified many people. When the proposed day arrived, he repaired early, with multitudes of his followers, to a particular place in the open air, spending the whole day in the most fervent prayers and praises, in vain looking for the coming of the Lord, and the universal conflagration of the elements, &c.

STILE. See Style.

STILYARD. See Steelyard.