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Augustus De Morgan
Times obituary
Our obituary column yesterday contained the name of a gentleman widely known in educational and literary circlos, and one of the most eminently practical of mathematicians. Professor Augustus Morgan died on Saturday at his residence in Merton Road, N.W., in the 65th year of his age.
The son of a colonel in the Madras Army, he was born at Madras, in Southern India, on the 27th of June, 1806. He was educated under private tutors, and in 1824 entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where be took his bachelor's degice as fourth wrangler in 1827. On leaving college, he entered himself as a law student as Lincoln's Inn; but he abandoned all thought of following the legal profesalon on his election in 1828 to the Professorship of Mathematics in the newly-founded University of London, now known as University College. He resigned his post in 1811, but was re-appointed to it a few years subsequently on the death of his successor, Professor White, but finally retired from his chair a few years ago.
Though well known as a Professor, Professor De Morgan's name is even more widely known as a writer on the principles, history, and practical application of mathematical science, and on points connected with the profession of an actuary, which he practiced for many years, although not attached to any life office, He also published works on arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, double algebra, the differential calculus, the calculus of functions, the theory of probabilities, life contingencies, the gnomonic projection, the globes, logic, and a work called the Book of Almanacks, by which the reader may turn to the whole almanack of any year, past, present, or future, at once, in either style.
Professor De Morgan contributed to Mr. Charles Knight's Penny Cyclopaedia several of the most important articles on mathematics, physics, astronomy, &c., and also biographies of Newon, Halley, and other men of science to the same publisher's series of British Worthies. He was also the author of a series of articles in the Companion to the Almanack 1833-57, and contributed many memoirs and papers to the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the Philosophical Magazine, and the Cambridge and Dublin Journal. He was also a frequent writer in Notes and Queries and in the Atheneum. In the pages of the latter, his amusing "Budget of Paradoxes" extended over a series of numbers in themen 1865-66, &c. He was a large contributor to the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Coordination; and for some years a member of the committee of that institution. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. For upwards of 30 years he was a member of the council of the Astronomical Society, during 13 of which he acted as one of its secretarios. For many years he wrote extensively in favor of the decimal coinage. For many years Professor De Morgan advocated large extensions of the science of logic, and proposed a logical system, of which the most condensed view is to be found in his "Syllabus," published in 1860. His controversy on the subject with the late Sir Willian Hamilton excited such interest at the time, but it would no impossible to give an outline of it in the brief space as our disposal.
Our obituary column yesterday contained the name of a gentleman widely known in educational and literary circlos, and one of the most eminently practical of mathematicians. Professor Augustus Morgan died on Saturday at his residence in Merton Road, N.W., in the 65th year of his age.
The son of a colonel in the Madras Army, he was born at Madras, in Southern India, on the 27th of June, 1806. He was educated under private tutors, and in 1824 entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where be took his bachelor's degice as fourth wrangler in 1827. On leaving college, he entered himself as a law student as Lincoln's Inn; but he abandoned all thought of following the legal profesalon on his election in 1828 to the Professorship of Mathematics in the newly-founded University of London, now known as University College. He resigned his post in 1811, but was re-appointed to it a few years subsequently on the death of his successor, Professor White, but finally retired from his chair a few years ago.
Though well known as a Professor, Professor De Morgan's name is even more widely known as a writer on the principles, history, and practical application of mathematical science, and on points connected with the profession of an actuary, which he practiced for many years, although not attached to any life office, He also published works on arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, double algebra, the differential calculus, the calculus of functions, the theory of probabilities, life contingencies, the gnomonic projection, the globes, logic, and a work called the Book of Almanacks, by which the reader may turn to the whole almanack of any year, past, present, or future, at once, in either style.
Professor De Morgan contributed to Mr. Charles Knight's Penny Cyclopaedia several of the most important articles on mathematics, physics, astronomy, &c., and also biographies of Newon, Halley, and other men of science to the same publisher's series of British Worthies. He was also the author of a series of articles in the Companion to the Almanack 1833-57, and contributed many memoirs and papers to the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the Philosophical Magazine, and the Cambridge and Dublin Journal. He was also a frequent writer in Notes and Queries and in the Atheneum. In the pages of the latter, his amusing "Budget of Paradoxes" extended over a series of numbers in themen 1865-66, &c. He was a large contributor to the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Coordination; and for some years a member of the committee of that institution. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. For upwards of 30 years he was a member of the council of the Astronomical Society, during 13 of which he acted as one of its secretarios. For many years he wrote extensively in favor of the decimal coinage. For many years Professor De Morgan advocated large extensions of the science of logic, and proposed a logical system, of which the most condensed view is to be found in his "Syllabus," published in 1860. His controversy on the subject with the late Sir Willian Hamilton excited such interest at the time, but it would no impossible to give an outline of it in the brief space as our disposal.
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