Biographical Sketches and Recollections (with Early Letters) of Henry John Stephen Smith ....private circulation, 1894 - 99 páginas |
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Biographical Sketches and Recollections of Henry John Stephen Smith Henry John Stephen Smith Sin vista previa disponible - 2019 |
Términos y frases comunes
Academy admiration Arithmetic Athenæum Club avait Balliol Balliol College brilliant British Association Camille Jordan character College Commission Conington course d'eux death démonstration deux doubt duties Eisenstein elected Elliptic Functions English expressed fact feel Folkestone formulæ Gauss gave genius genre Geometry gifts give Grant Duff H. J. S. SMITH Highton honour household franchise intellectual interest John Conington Jowett knew l'Académie L'auteur lectures letter Liberal London Mathematical Society mathematician Mathématiques matter meeting memoir Messenger mind modular equation nature never nombres Note note-books occasion October number opinion Oxford papers party perhaps political possessed powers present Professor Henry Smith Professor Smith publication published pupils quadratic forms question remarkable remember résultats Rugby scholar Scholarship seemed theorem Theory of Numbers Theta and Omega Theta Functions things thought Transformation Tutor University whole write written wrote
Pasajes populares
Página 46 - ... A dispute arose at an Oxford dinner-table as to the comparative prestige of Bishops and Judges. The argument, as might be expected at a party of Laymen, went in favour of the latter. ' No,' said Henry Smith ; ' for a Judge can only say, " Hang you," but a Bishop can say, " D — n you." ' — The next is of a higher class of wit. Speaking of an eminent scientific man to whom he gave considerable praise, he said : ' Yet he sometimes forgets that he is only the editor and not the author of Nature.'...
Página 46 - Speaking to a newly elected Fellow of a College, he advised him, in the low whisper which we all remember, to write a little and to save a little, adding : ' I have done neither.' These slight jests may perhaps be thought disappointing : it is probable that they are marred in the telling. They were the bubbles which were always rising to the surface of his mind, and though but poorly reported, may help to give to those who did not know him personally a faint idea of the charm of his character and...
Página 76 - Euler's, there is a sort of free and luxuriant gracefulness about the whole performance which tells of the qniet pleasure which Euler must have taken in each step of his work ; but we are conscious, nevertheless, that we are at an immense distance from the severe grandeur of design which is characteristic of all Gauss's greater efforts.
Página 1 - I had a large experience of boys during a head-mastership of more than thirty-three years, but I have often remarked that the brilliant talents of Henry Smith prevented me from ever being really astonished at the abilities of any subsequent pupil. His power of memory, quickness of perception, indefatigable diligence, and intuitive grasp of whatever he studied were very remarkable at that early age. What he got through during those few months, and the way in which he got through it, have never ceased...
Página 13 - We cannot imagine a more painful spectacle of human presumption than that which would be afforded by a man who should sit down to arrange, ' in a satisfactory way,' a scheme for the extension of Divine mercy to some distant planet, and who, when he found 'great difficulty in conceiving...
Página 76 - The fact is, that there is neither obscurity nor difficulty in his writings, so long as we read them in the submissive spirit in which an intelligent school-boy is made to read his Euclid. Every assertion that is made is fully proved, and the assertions succeed one another in a perfectly just analogical order ; there is nothing, so far, of which we can complain. But, when we have finished the perusal, we soon begin to feel that our work is but begun, that we are still standing...
Página 39 - possessed of greater natural abilities than any one else whom I have known at Oxford. He had the clearest and most lucid mind, and a natural experience of the world and of human character hardly ever to be found in one so young.
Página 77 - Mature, vol. xv, p. 537 (April 19, 1877). the quiet pleasure which Euler must have taken in each step of his work ; but we are conscious nevertheless that we are at an immense distance from the severe grandeur of design which is characteristic of all Gauss's greater efforts. The preceding criticism, if just, ought not to appear wholly trivial ; for though it is quite true that in any mathematical work the substance is immeasurably more important than the form, yet it cannot be doubted that many mathematical...
Página 13 - ... more strongly upon our mind the impression of this singular species of self-deception. What still further confirms us in it is that the Essayist appears to have no correct apprehension of the force of the arguments that may be directed against him. Within his own mind he has already overborne them. In the Dialogue at the beginning of the Essay, the earlier letters of the alphabet, who appear as the objectors, conduct themselves so much like simpletons that one wonders at their being thought worthy...
Página 76 - ... nothing so far of which we can complain. But when we have finished the perusal, we soon begin to feel that our work is but begun, that we are still standing on the threshold of the temple, and that there is a secret which lies behind the veil and is as yet concealed from us ... no vestige appears of the process by which the result itself was obtained, perhaps not even a trace of the considerations which suggested the successive steps of the demonstration. Gauss says more than once that, for brevity,...