Henricus Grammateus (also known as Henricus Scriptor, Heinrich Schreyber or Heinrich Schreiber; 1495 – 1525 or 1526) was a German

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. He was born in

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital (political), capital and largest city of the Central Germany (cultural area), Central German state of Thuringia, with a population of around 216,000. It lies in the wide valley of the Gera (river), River Gera, in the so ...

. In 1507 he started to study at the University of Vienna, where he subsequently taught. Christoph Rudolff was one of his students. From 1514 to 1517 he studied in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

and then returned to Vienna. But when the plague affected Vienna Schreiber left the city and went to

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

. In 1518, he published details of a new musical temperament, which is now named after him, for the

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

. It was a precursor of the

equal temperament An equal temperament is a musical temperament or Musical tuning#Tuning systems, tuning system that approximates Just intonation, just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into steps such that the ratio of the frequency, frequencie ...

. In 1525 Schreiber was back in Vienna, where he is listed as "Examinator", i.e. eligible to work holding exams.

Works

* ''Algorithmus proportionum una cum monochordi generalis dyatonici compositione'', pub. Volfgangvm De Argentina, Kraków, 1514 * ''Libellus de compositione regularum pro vasorum mensuratione. Deque arte ista tota theoreticae et practicae'', Vienna, 1518 * ''Ayn new Kunstlich Buech'' (''A New Skill Book''), Vienna 1518, Nuremberg 1521 - contains (besides Johannes Widmann) the earliest-known use of the

plus and minus signs The plus sign () and the minus sign () are Glossary of mathematical symbols, mathematical symbols used to denote sign (mathematics), positive and sign (mathematics), negative functions, respectively. In addition, the symbol represents the oper ...

for addition and subtraction and is the earliest German text on bookkeeping

References

1495 births 1525 deaths Scientists from Erfurt 16th-century German mathematicians German music theorists German musicologists 16th-century German writers 16th-century German male writers {{germany-mathematician-stub