Arthur Cayley

Arthur Cayley (August 16 1821 - January 26 1895) was a British mathematician. He helped found the modern British school of pure mathematics.

BMA

The next year Cayley came prominently before the world, as President of the British Association for the Advancement of

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Science. The meeting was held at Southport, in the north of England. As the President's address is one of the great popular

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

events of the meeting, and brings out an audience of general culture, it is usually made as little technical as possible.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hamilton was the kind of mathematician to suit such an occasion, but he never got the office, on account of his occasional breaks.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Cayley had not the oratorical, the philosophical, or the poetical gifts of Hamilton, but then he was an eminently safe man. He took

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

for his subject the Progress of Pure Mathematics; and he opened his address in the following naive manner:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:I wish to speak to you to-night upon Mathematics. I am quite aware of the difficulty arising from the abstract nature of my subject; and if, as I fear, many or some of you, recalling the providential addresses at former meetings, should wish that you were now about to have from a different President a discourse on a different subject, I can very well sympathize with you in the feeling. But be that as it may, I think it is more respectful to you that I should speak to you upon and do my best to interest you in the subject which has occupied me, and in which I am myself most interested. And in another point of view, I think it is right that the address of a president should be on his own subject, and that different subjects should be thus brought in turn before the meetings. So much the worse, it may be, for a particular meeting: but the meeting is the individual, which on evolution principles, must be sacrificed for the development of the race.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I daresay that after this introduction, all the evolution philosophers

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

listened to him attentively, whether they understood him or not. But Cayley doubtless felt that he was addressing not only the

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

popular audience then and there before him, but the mathematicians of distant places and future times; for the address is a valuable

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

historical review of various mathematical theories, and is characterized by freshness, independence of view, suggestiveness, and learning.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~