Joost Bürgi was born on February 28, 1552 in Lichtensteig, Switzerland. He was the most renowned Swiss antique clocks maker of the time. It is unknown where Bürgi learned his clock-making skills since he was regarded as the most innovative clock maker and he also mastered the craft of making instruments.
His major contributions in horology were the remontoire and the cross-beat escapement. These two mechanisms improved the accuracy of mechanical clocks by orders of magnitude. This led to the use of the first time antique clocks as scientific instruments. The accuracy of these mechanisms helped in timing the passing of heavenly bodies like stars in the telescopes' crosshairs, which then signaled the start of accurate charting of stellar positions.
Bürgi worked at the Kassel court of the Margraf Wilhelm. He was an instrument maker who contributed much in the development of the first astronomical charts. He was also the one who invented important scientific instruments for Landgraf of Hesse-Kassel Wilhelm der Weise, who played the role of a state ruler and a first class astronomer in one. Since his work involves more on astronomical calculations, he made his own working tool in the form of logarithms. But since he was a crafsman-scholar and not a book scholar, he failed to publish this invention.
Years after, Bürgi worked in Praha for Emperor Rudolph II, later on to his successor Matthias in Prague. He was able to work closely with a renowned astronomer Tycho Brahe. He became more serious in Mathematics that he contributed a lot of mathematical ideas, which include the introduction to algebra. Johannes Kepler, an Imperial Mathematician, astronomer and cosmologist have benefited from his idea. Thus, Kepler persuaded Bürgi to write his original work on logarithms. It was only then when his inventions were published. The manuscript was handwritten by Kepler and printed in 1620. The method used by Bürgi is different from the method of Napier.
With his brilliant mind and skillful mechanics, Joost Bürgi should not only be considered as one of those innovative antique clock makers. He was also nominated to be one of the leading astronomers of his era because of his outstanding ability to design and construct mechanical models used to identify the movement of heavenly bodies. This proved to be an advanced level of insight in exploring more about the celestial mechanics.
People were fascinated of him since he did not have a formal education and did not even know Latin, which is the only language used in scholarly publications during that time. But he was still able to leave a few written records of his inventions and ideas. Some historians of Science agreed that the legacy of Joost Bürgi for his many unique and innovative mechanical astronomical contributions should be considered as an unorthodox method of publishing his insights.
Joost Bürgi died on January 31, 1632 in Kassel, which is now Germany. He died with his important marks left in the improvement of Horology, Mathematics and Astronomy. His works are notably used up to the present time, especially in the field of Mathematics and Astronomy.