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23 May 1829 {Bulletin de Firmsac, xi, 1829, p. 419 ; Mimoires par divers
Savans, Vl, 1835, pp. 273 —318), or in what way he learnt of the theorem, there
seems to be no record. It is not referred to in the Report on Analysis by
George Peacock, Cambridge British Association Report, 1833, pp. 185 352, —
which deals at length with Fourier's method. Sylvester records (ii 655 6) —
that Sturm told him that the theorem originated in the theory of compound
pendulums, but he makes no reference to Sturm's recognition of the applica-
tion of his principles to certain differential equations of the second order.
Another aspect of Sylvester's time at Cambridge must be referred to.
At and indeed until 1871, it was necessary, in order to obtain the
this time,
Cambridge degree, to subscribe to the Articles of the Church of England
one of the attempts, in 1834, to remove the restriction, is recorded in the Life
of Adam Sedgwick, already referred to (i 418 ; Sedgwick writes a letter to
the Times, 8 April 1834). Sylvester was, in his own subsequent bitter
phrase (ill 81), one of the first holding "the faith in which the Founder of
Christianity was educated " to compete for high honours in the Mathematical
Tripos ; not only could he not obtain a degree, but he was excluded from the
examination for Dr Smith's mathematical prizes, which, founded in 1769, was
usually taken by those who had been most successful in the Mathematical
Tripos. Most probably, too, had the
been otherwise, he would have been
facts