Michael Stifel or Styfel (Esslingen 1486 or 1487 – April 19, 1567, Jena) was an Augustinian monk who became an early supporter of Martin Luther and was later appointed professor of mathematics at Jena University. He is best known for his poem Von der christfrömmigen rechtgegründgten Lahr D. Martini Luthers (1522).

His most important work is "Arithmetica integra" (1544) contained important innovations in mathematical notation. It has the first use of multiplication by juxtaposition (with no symbol between the terms) in Europe. He is the first to use the term "exponent". The book contains a table of integers and powers of 2 that some have considered to be an early version of a logarithmic table.[1][2]

In 1532 Stifel published anonymously his "Ein Rechenbuchlin vom EndChrist. Apocalyps in Apocalypsim" (A Book of Arithmetic about the AntiChrist. A Revelation in the Revelation). This predicted that Judgement Day the world would end at 8am on October 19, 1533. When this prediction failed, he did not make any other predictions.

References

1. ^ Walter William Rouse Ball (1908). A short account of the history of mathematics. Macmillan and Co. p. 216. 2. ^ Vivian Shaw Groza and Susanne M. Shelley (1972). Precalculus mathematics. 9780030776700. p. 182. ISBN 9780030776700.
* Stifel, Michael (1544) "Arithmetica integra".,
* Anon. (Stifel, Michael) (1532)"Ein Rechenbuchlin vom EndChrist. Apocalyps in Apocalypsim" (A Book of Arithmetic about the AntiChrist. A Revelation in the Revelation).
* Koetsier, Teun and Karin Reich (2005) Michale Stifel and his numerology. pp. 291–310 in Koetsier and Bergmans (2005).
* Koetsier, Teun and Luc Bergmans (2005) Mathematics and the Divine: A Historical Study. Elsevier.

External links

* MacTutor biography