associated with the East India Company.

He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge,

graduating as fourth wrangler, and in 1828 became a professor at the then newly established
University of London (later renamed University College), where, through his works and his
students, he exercised a wide influence in English mathematics. He was well read in the
philosophy and the history of mathematics, and wrote works on the foundations of algebra,
differential calculus, logic, and the theory of probability. He was a highly lucid expositor. His
witty and amusing book, A Budget of Paradoxes, still makes entertaining reading. He continued
Boole’s work on the algebra of sets, enunciating the principle of duality of set theory, of which
the so-called De Morgan laws are an illustration: If A and B are subsets of a universal set, then
the complement of the union of A and B is the intersection of the complements of A and B, and
the complement of the intersection of A and B is the union of complements of A and B (in
symbols: (A U B)' = A' H B’ and (A n B)' = A' U B', where prime denotes complement). Like
Boole, De Morgan regarded mathematics as an abstract study of symbols subjected to sets of
symbolic operations. De Morgan was an outspoken champion of academic freedom and of
religious tolerance. He performed beautifully on the flute and was always jovial company, and he
was a confirmed lover of big-city life. He had a fondness for puzzles and conundrums, and when
asked either his age or his year of birth would reply, “I was x years old in the year x2.” He died
in London in 1871.
13-13 Cayley, Sylvester, and Hermite
The major part of this section is devoted to two brilliant English mathematicians, Arthur Cayley
and James Joseph Sylvester, who greatly stimulated one another, frequently researched on the
same mathematical problems, created much new mathematics, and, yet, were opposites in
temperament, style, and outlook.
Arthur Cayley was born in 1821 at Richmond, in Surrey, and was educated at Trinity College,
Cambridge, graduating in 1842 as senior wrangler in the mathematical tripos and in the same
year placing first in the even more difficult test for the Smith’s prize. For a period of several
years, he studied and practiced law, always being careful not to let his legal practice prevent him
from working on mathematics. While a student of the bar, he went to Dublin and attended
Hamilton’s lectures on quaternions. When the Sadlerian professorship was established at
Cambridge in 1863, Cayley was offered the chair, which he accepted, thus giving up a lucrative
future in the legal profession for the modest provision of an academic life. But then he could
devote all of his time to mathematics.
Cayley ranks as the third most prolific writer of mathematics in the history of the subject, being
surpassed only by Euler and Cauchy. He began publishing while still an undergraduate student at
Cambridge, put out between 200 and 300 papers during his years of legal practice, and continued
his prolific publication the rest of his long life. The massive Collected Mathematical Papers of
Cayley