Ezechiel de Decker

Ezechiel de Decker (* around 1603 in Leiden, 1643 ) was a Dutch reckoning master surveyor and publisher of logarithms.

De Decker was a teacher of arithmetic and from 1621 as a citizen in Gouda detectable. 1629 he went to Rotterdam, where he taught navigation and a book published practice of the Great Maritime ( Practijck van de Groote Zeevaert ). Around 1640 he moved to The Hague where he performed calibration measurements on drums.

De Decker appeared in 1625 in contact with Adriaan Vlacq ( a publisher ) to publish books on arithmetic by John Napier, Simon Stevin, Henry Briggs and Decker himself what happened in Eerste Deel van de Nieuwe Telkunst 1626. 1627 followed as Tweede Deel the decimal logarithm of Briggs ( Arithmetica Logarithmica, 1624 ), but which were completed by the numbers 20000-90000, which were missing at Briggs. Compared with the Briggs logarithms were reduced from 14 to 10 decimal places. The first edition under the name of de Decker found only limited distribution, the second in 1628 under the name of Vlacq other hand, was very successful and Vlacq also issued foreign-language editions.

Since Vlacq apparently without objection from Decker brought out further editions, has long been believed (eg Dirk Struik ) that Vlacq had the main share of their creation. Which has been rejected in recent years because of the background of Vlacq of a bookseller and publisher, was not that of a mathematician. Vlacq probably has the translation created ( De Decker dominated Latin imperfectly ) and the books financed.