Item 95 - Letter from William Henry Fox Talbot

3 pp.

Lacock Abbey, Chippenham - Talbot asks who to contact concerning membership to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, as the next meeting will be held near him. He is engaged in preparing a mathematical paper for the Royal Society, on the Integral Calculus, offering a solution to the problem of finding an algebraic sum of a series of integrals like ƒφ(X) αγ where φ is any function whatever of the rational polynomial X. He notes that George Jerrard has proposed a solution of algebraic equations of the 5th degree and recommends it be put to the test; and a solution in Gergonne's Annals by a Swedish officer of an equation that has no demonstration appended and therefore appears to have been ignored.

Transcription published as document number 5515 in The Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot project online hosted by De Montfort University and the University of Glasgow: http://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/project/project.html