Affichage de 4 résultats

Emmanuel College, Cambridge. - Thanks Rouse Ball for [Cayley's] papers; 'Even these fragmentary 'remains' are very impressive. What a worker the great man was!'. Could have added a postscript to his previous letter: '"Bircloids remind me of those excellent plates of [Henry?] Perigal, of which I have never been able to get a copy"; is very glad to have the set of six now. Comments on [Cayley's?] 'oddly named' parabolites, and the 'elusive puzzle' of the page with no text showing some skew varieties.

On embossed notepaper for Emmanuel College, Cambridge. - Would be glad to have the selections from the Cayley papers which Rouse Ball has set aside for him; already has a few specimens of Cayley's autograph work which Forsyth sent him when editing Cayley's collected works, but the papers Rouse Ball has chosen may have an 'intrinsic interest' for him. Has 'never really "gone in for" polyhedra', and doubts whether he deserves to have the Taylor collection, but would like to inspect it; wonders whether Hobson was right to decline it for the School [of Mathematics?]; polyhedra 'have now rather an extra importance, with the mathematical crystallography so much to the fore'; asks when and where he may see the models.

The list gives the name of each recipient, and a brief note of what they were sent of Cayley's papers by Rouse Ball. The copies of letters sent to recipients are in most case form letters, explaining that on the death of Cayley's widow his papers were put into Rouse Ball's hands with a request that he should destroy or dispose of them as he saw fit; 'all involving matter which might be published was dealt with years ago, and what was preserved has no interest beyond the fact that it is a specimen of his work'. Longer letters were sent to G. T. Bennett, also asking whether he would like to see the models of Archimedean and other solids made by W. W. Taylor, and to D. E. Smith, also taking the opportunity to send a paper on Euler which might be of interest to the American Mathematical Monthly. A long second letter to E. H. Neville gives details of the nature of Cayley's papers, and the principles by which Rouse Ball decided what should be destroyed: 'As for letters to him, of which many hundreds were put in my hands, I laid down the rule that in general such letters should be destroyed or sent back to the writers if they were alive'; lists the few exceptions; the letter also suggests that Neville take a look at Monge's Card-Shuffling Problem.

Emmanuel College, Cambridge - Thanks Rouse Ball for the Cayley MS; it 'may not add much to our knowledge of the binary quintic, but I find it very interesting as an "exhibit"'. Believes it 'fashionable to try and despise Cayley's downright sledge hammer methods of attack; but he had a wonderful power of reaching his objective. He was a mathematical tank in some of his methods, but he knew where he was going'. Has always regretted that Cayley died before he came up. Likes to think of himself as a 'sort of grandson' since he learned geometry from G. T. Bennett, who learnt it from Cayley.