PERSONS AND ANECDOTES
(N-Z)
=1001.= When he had a few moments for diversion, he [Napoleon]
not unfrequently employed them over a book of logarithms, in
which he always found recreation.--ABBOTT, J. S. C.
_Napoleon Bonaparte (New York, 1904),
Vol. 1, chap. 10._
=1002.= The name of Sir Isaac Newton has by general consent been
placed at the head of those great men who have been the ornaments
of their species.... The philosopher [Laplace], indeed, to whom
posterity will probably assign a place next to Newton, has
characterized the Principia as pre-eminent above all the
productions of human intellect.--BREWSTER, D.
_Life of Sir Isaac Newton (London,
1831), pp. 1, 2._
=1003.= Newton and Laplace need myriads of ages and thick-strewn
celestial areas. One may say a gravitating solar system is
already prophesied in the nature of Newton’s mind.--EMERSON.
_Essay on History._
=1004.= The law of gravitation is indisputably and incomparably
the greatest scientific discovery ever made, whether we look at
the advance which it involved, the extent of truth disclosed, or
the fundamental and satisfactory nature of this truth.
--WHEWELL, W.
_History of the Inductive Sciences, Bk.
7, chap. 2, sect. 5._
=1005.= Newton’s theory is the circle of generalization which
includes all the others [as Kepler’s laws, Ptolemy’s theory,
etc.];--the highest point of the inductive ascent;--the
catastrophe of the philosophic drama to which Plato had
prologized;--the point to which men’s minds had been journeying
for two thousand years.--WHEWELL, W.
_History of the Inductive Sciences, Bk.
7, chap. 2, sect. 5._
=1006.= The efforts of the great philosopher [Newton] were always
superhuman; the questions which he did not solve were incapable
of solution in his time.--ARAGO.
_Eulogy on Laplace, [Baden Powell]
Smithsonian Report, 1874, p. 133._
=1007.=
Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night:
God said, “Let Newton be!” and all was light.
--POPE, A.
_Epitaph intended for Sir Isaac Newton._
=1008.=
There Priest of Nature! dost thou shine,
_Newton!_ a King among the Kings divine.
--SOUTHEY.
_Translation of a Greek Ode on
Astronomy._
=1009.=
O’er Nature’s laws God cast the veil of night,
Out-blaz’d a Newton’s soul--and all was light.
--HILL, AARON.
_On Sir Isaac Newton._
=1010.= Taking mathematics from the beginning of the world to the
time when Newton lived, what he had done was much the better
half.--LEIBNITZ.
_Quoted by F. R. Moulton: Introduction
to Astronomy (New York, 1906), p. 199._
=1011.= Newton was the greatest genius that ever existed, and the
most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the
world to establish.--LAGRANGE.
_Quoted by F. R. Moulton: Introduction
to Astronomy (New York, 1906), p. 199._
=1012.= A monument to Newton! a monument to Shakespeare! Look
up to Heaven--look into the Human Heart. Till the planets
and the passions--the affections and the fixed stars are
extinguished--their names cannot die.--WILSON, JOHN.
_Noctes Ambrosianae._
=1013.= Such men as Newton and Linnaeus are incidental, but
august, teachers of religion.--WILSON, JOHN.
_Essays: Education of the People._
=1014.= Sir Isaac Newton, the supreme representative of
Anglo-Saxon genius.--ELLIS, HAVELOCK.
_Study of British Genius (London, 1904),
p. 49._
=1015.= Throughout his life Newton must have devoted at least as
much attention to chemistry and theology as to mathematics....
--BALL, W. W. R.
_History of Mathematics (London, 1901),
p. 335._
=1016.= There was a time when he [Newton] was possessed with the
old fooleries of astrology; and another when he was so far gone
in those of chemistry, as to be upon the hunt after the
philosopher’s stone.--REV. J. SPENCE.
_Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters
of Books and Men (London, 1868), p. 54._
=1017.= For several years this great man [Newton] was intensely
occupied in endeavoring to discover a way of changing the base
metals into gold.... There were periods when his furnace fires
were not allowed to go out for six weeks; he and his secretary
sitting up alternate nights to replenish them.--PARTON, JAMES.
_Sir Isaac Newton._
=1018.= On the day of Cromwell’s death, when Newton was sixteen,
a great storm raged all over England. He used to say, in his old
age, that on that day he made his first purely scientific
experiment. To ascertain the force of the wind, he first jumped
with the wind and then against it; and, by comparing these
distances with the extent of his own jump on a calm day, he was
enabled to compute the force of the storm. When the wind blew
thereafter, he used to say it was so many feet strong.
--PARTON, JAMES.
_Sir Isaac Newton._
=1019.= Newton lectured now and then to the few students who
chose to hear him; and it is recorded that very frequently he
came to the lecture-room and found it empty. On such occasions he
would remain fifteen minutes, and then, if no one came, return to
his apartments.--PARTON, JAMES.
_Sir Isaac Newton._
=1020.= Sir Isaac Newton, though so deep in algebra and fluxions,
could not readily make up a common account: and, when he was
Master of the Mint, used to get somebody else to make up his
accounts for him.--REV. J. SPENCE.
_Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters
of Books and Men (London, 1858), p.
132._
=1021.= We have one of his [Newton’s] college memorandum-books,
which is highly interesting. The following are some of the
entries: “Drills, gravers, a hone, a hammer, and a mandril, 5s.;”
“a magnet, 16s.;” “compasses, 2s.;” “glass bubbles, 4s.;” “at the
tavern several other times, £1;” “spent on my cousin, 12s.;” “on
other acquaintances, 10s.;” “Philosophical Intelligences, 9s.
6d.;” “lost at cards twice, 15s.;” “at the tavern twice, 3s.
6d.;” “to three prisms, £3;” “four ounces of putty, 1s. 4d.;”
“Bacon’s Miscellanies, 1s. 6d.;” “a bible binding, 3s.;” “for
oranges to my sister, 4s. 2d.;” “for aquafortis, sublimate, oyle
pink, fine silver, antimony, vinegar, spirit of wine, white lead,
salt of tartar, £2;” “Theatrum chemicum, £1 8s.”--PARTON, JAMES.
_Sir Isaac Newton._
=1022.= On one occasion, when he was giving a dinner to some
friends at the university, he left the table to get them a bottle
of wine; but, on his way to the cellar, he fell into reflection,
forgot his errand and his company, went to his chamber, put on
his surplice, and proceeded to the chapel. Sometimes he would go
into the street half dressed, and on discovering his condition,
run back in great haste, much abashed. Often, while strolling in
his garden, he would suddenly stop, and then run rapidly to his
room, and begin to write, standing, on the first piece of paper
that presented itself. Intending to dine in the public hall, he
would go out in a brown study, take the wrong turn, walk a while,
and then return to his room, having totally forgotten the dinner.
Once having dismounted from his horse to lead him up a hill, the
horse slipped his head out of the bridle; but Newton, oblivious,
never discovered it till, on reaching a tollgate at the top of
the hill, he turned to remount and perceived that the bridle
which he held in his hand had no horse attached to it. His
secretary records that his forgetfulness of his dinner was an
excellent thing for his old housekeeper, who “sometimes found
both dinner and supper scarcely tasted of, which the old woman
has very pleasantly and mumpingly gone away with.” On getting out
of bed in the morning, he has been discovered to sit on his
bedside for hours without dressing himself, utterly absorbed in
thought.--PARTON, JAMES.
_Sir Isaac Newton._
=1023.= I don’t know what I may seem to the world, but, as to
myself, I seem to have been only as a boy playing on the
seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother
pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean
of truth lay all undiscovered before me.--NEWTON, I.
_Quoted by Rev. J. Spence: Anecdotes,
Observations, and Characters of Books
and Men (London, 1858), p. 40._
=1024.= If I have seen farther than Descartes, it is by standing
on the shoulders of giants.--NEWTON, I.
_Quoted by James Parton: Sir Isaac
Newton._
=1025.= Newton could not admit that there was any difference
between him and other men, except in the possession of such
habits as ... perseverance and vigilance. When he was asked how
he made his discoveries, he answered, “by always thinking about
them;” and at another time he declared that if he had done
anything, it was due to nothing but industry and patient thought:
“I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait
till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little,
into a full and clear light.”--WHEWELL, W.
_History of the Inductive Sciences, Bk.
7, chap. 2, sect. 5._
=1026.= Newton took no exercise, indulged in no amusements, and
worked incessantly, often spending eighteen or nineteen hours out
of the twenty-four in writing.--BALL, W. W. R.
_History of Mathematics (London, 1901),
p. 358._
=1027.= Foreshadowings of the principles and even of the language
of [the infinitesimal] calculus can be found in the writings of
Napier, Kepler, Cavalieri, Pascal, Fermat, Wallis, and Barrow. It
was Newton’s good luck to come at a time when everything was ripe
for the discovery, and his ability enabled him to construct
almost at once a complete calculus.--BALL, W. W. R.
_History of Mathematics (London, 1901),
p. 356._
=1028.= Kepler’s suggestion of gravitation with the inverse
distance, and Bouillaud’s proposed substitution of the inverse
square of the distance, are things which Newton knew better than
his modern readers. I have discovered two anagrams on his name,
which are quite conclusive: the notion of gravitation was _not
new_; but Newton _went on_.--DE MORGAN, A.
_Budget of Paradoxes (London, 1872), p.
82._
=1029.= For other great mathematicians or philosophers, he
[Gauss] used the epithets magnus, or clarus, or clarissimus; for
Newton alone he kept the prefix summus.--BALL, W. W. R.
_History of Mathematics (London, 1901),
p. 362._
=1030.= To know him [Sylvester] was to know one of the historic
figures of all time, one of the immortals; and when he was really
moved to speak, his eloquence equalled his genius.--HALSTED, G. B.
_F. Cajori’s Teaching and History of
Mathematics in the U. S. (Washington,
1890), p. 265._
=1031.= Professor Sylvester’s first high class at the new
university Johns Hopkins consisted of only one student, G. B.
Halsted, who had persisted in urging Sylvester to lecture on the
modern algebra. The attempt to lecture on this subject led him
into new investigations in quantics.--CAJORI, F.
_Teaching and History of Mathematics in
the U. S. (Washington, 1890), p. 264._
=1032.= But for the persistence of a student of this university
in urging upon me his desire to study with me the modern algebra
I should never have been led into this investigation; and the
new facts and principles which I have discovered in regard to it
(important facts, I believe), would, so far as I am concerned,
have remained still hidden in the womb of time. In vain I
represented to this inquisitive student that he would do better
to take up some other subject lying less off the beaten track of
study, such as the higher parts of the calculus or elliptic
functions, or the theory of substitutions, or I wot not what
besides. He stuck with perfect respectfulness, but with
invincible pertinacity, to his point. He would have the new
algebra (Heaven knows where he had heard about it, for it is
almost unknown in this continent), that or nothing. I was obliged
to yield, and what was the consequence? In trying to throw light
upon an obscure explanation in our text-book, my brain took fire,
I plunged with re-quickened zeal into a subject which I had for
years abandoned, and found food for thoughts which have engaged
my attention for a considerable time past, and will probably
occupy all my powers of contemplation advantageously for several
months to come.--SYLVESTER, J. J.
_Johns Hopkins Commemoration Day
Address; Collected Mathematical Papers,
Vol. 3, p. 76._
=1033.= Sylvester was incapable of reading mathematics in a
purely receptive way. Apparently a subject either fired in his
brain a train of active and restless thought, or it would not
retain his attention at all. To a man of such a temperament, it
would have been peculiarly helpful to live in an atmosphere in
which his human associations would have supplied the stimulus
which he could not find in mere reading. The great modern work in
the theory of functions and in allied disciplines, he never
became acquainted with....
What would have been the effect if, in the prime of his powers,
he had been surrounded by the influences which prevail in Berlin
or in Göttingen? It may be confidently taken for granted that he
would have done splendid work in those domains of analysis, which
have furnished the laurels of the great mathematicians of Germany
and France in the second half of the present century.--FRANKLIN, F.
_Johns Hopkins University Circulars 16
(1897), p. 54._
=1034.= If we survey the mathematical works of Sylvester, we
recognize indeed a considerable abundance, but in contradistinction
to Cayley--not a versatility toward separate fields, but, with few
exceptions--a confinement to arithmetic-algebraic branches....
The concept of _Function_ of a continuous variable, the fundamental
concept of modern mathematics, plays no role, is indeed scarcely
mentioned in the entire work of Sylvester--Sylvester was
combinatorist [combinatoriker].--NOETHER, M.
_Mathematische Annalen, Bd. 50 (1898),
pp. 134-135._
=1035.= Sylvester’s _methods!_ He had none. “Three lectures will
be delivered on a New Universal Algebra,” he would say; then,
“The course must be extended to twelve.” It did last all the
rest of that year. The following year the course was to be
_Substitutions-Theorie_, by Netto. We all got the text. He
lectured about three times, following the text closely and
stopping sharp at the end of the hour. Then he began to think
about matrices again. “I must give one lecture a week on those,”
he said. He could not confine himself to the hour, nor to the one
lecture a week. Two weeks were passed, and Netto was forgotten
entirely and never mentioned again. Statements like the following
were not unfrequent in his lectures: “I haven’t proved this, but
I am as sure as I can be of anything that it must be so. From
this it will follow, etc.” At the next lecture it turned out that
what he was so sure of was false. Never mind, he kept on forever
guessing and trying, and presently a wonderful discovery
followed, then another and another. Afterward he would go back
and work it all over again, and surprise us with all sorts of
side lights. He then made another leap in the dark, more
treasures were discovered, and so on forever.--DAVIS, E. W.
_Cajori’s Teaching and History of
Mathematics in the U.S. (Washington,
1890), pp. 265-266._
=1036.= I can see him [Sylvester] now, with his white beard and
few locks of gray hair, his forehead wrinkled o’er with thoughts,
writing rapidly his figures and formulae on the board, sometimes
explaining as he wrote, while we, his listeners, caught the
reflected sounds from the board. But stop, something is not
right, he pauses, his hand goes to his forehead to help his
thought, he goes over the work again, emphasizes the leading
points, and finally discovers his difficulty. Perhaps it is some
error in his figures, perhaps an oversight in the reasoning.
Sometimes, however, the difficulty is not elucidated, and then
there is not much to the rest of the lecture. But at the next
lecture we would hear of some new discovery that was the outcome
of that difficulty, and of some article for the Journal, which he
had begun. If a text-book had been taken up at the beginning,
with the intention of following it, that text-book was most
likely doomed to oblivion for the rest of the term, or until the
class had been made listeners to every new thought and principle
that had sprung from the laboratory of his mind, in consequence
of that first difficulty. Other difficulties would soon appear,
so that no text-book could last more than half of the term. In
this way his class listened to almost all of the work that
subsequently appeared in the Journal. It seemed to be the quality
of his mind that he must adhere to one subject. He would think
about it, talk about it to his class, and finally write about it
for the Journal. The merest accident might start him, but once
started, every moment, every thought was given to it, and, as
much as possible, he read what others had done in the same
direction; but this last seemed to be his real point; he could
not read without finding difficulties in the way of understanding
the author. Thus, often his own work reproduced what had been
done by others, and he did not find it out until too late.
A notable example of this is in his theory of cyclotomic
functions, which he had reproduced in several foreign journals,
only to find that he had been greatly anticipated by foreign
authors. It was manifest, one of the critics said, that the
learned professor had not read Kummer’s elementary results in the
theory of ideal primes. Yet Professor Smith’s report on the
theory of numbers, which contained a full synopsis of Kummer’s
theory, was Professor Sylvester’s constant companion.
This weakness of Professor Sylvester, in not being able to read
what others had done, is perhaps a concomitant of his peculiar
genius. Other minds could pass over little difficulties and not
be troubled by them, and so go on to a final understanding of
the results of the author. But not so with him. A difficulty,
however small, worried him, and he was sure to have difficulties
until the subject had been worked over in his own way, to
correspond with his own mode of thought. To read the work of
others, meant therefore to him an almost independent development
of it. Like the man whose pleasure in life is to pioneer the way
for society into the forests, his rugged mind could derive
satisfaction only in hewing out its own paths; and only when his
efforts brought him into the uncleared fields of mathematics did
he find his place in the Universe.--HATHAWAY, A. S.
_F. Cajori’s Teaching and History of
Mathematics in the U. S. (Washington,
1890), pp. 266-267._
=1037.= Professor Cayley has since informed me that the theorem
about whose origin I was in doubt, will be found in Schläfli’s
“De Eliminatione.” This is not the first unconscious plagiarism I
have been guilty of towards this eminent man whose friendship I
am proud to claim. A more glaring case occurs in a note by me in
the “Comptes Rendus,” on the twenty-seven straight lines of cubic
surfaces, where I believe I have followed (like one walking in
his sleep), down to the very nomenclature and notation, the
substance of a portion of a paper inserted by Schläfli in the
“Mathematical Journal,” which bears my name as one of the editors
upon the face.--SYLVESTER, J. J.
_Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society (1864), p. 642._
=1038.= He [Sylvester] had one remarkable peculiarity. He seldom
remembered theorems, propositions, etc., but had always to deduce
them when he wished to use them. In this he was the very
antithesis of Cayley, who was thoroughly conversant with
everything that had been done in every branch of mathematics.
I remember once submitting to Sylvester some investigations that
I had been engaged on, and he immediately denied my first
statement, saying that such a proposition had never been heard
of, let alone proved. To his astonishment, I showed him a paper
of his own in which he had proved the proposition; in fact, I
believe the object of his paper had been the very proof which was
so strange to him.--DURFEE, W. P.
_F. Cajori’s Teaching and History of
Mathematics in the U. S. (Washington,
1890), p. 268._
=1039.= A short, broad man of tremendous vitality, the physical type
of Hereward, the last of the English, and his brother-in-arms,
Winter, Sylvester’s capacious head was ever lost in the highest
cloud-lands of pure mathematics. Often in the dead of night he
would get his favorite pupil, that he might communicate the very
last product of his creative thought. Everything he saw suggested
to him something new in the higher algebra. This transmutation of
everything into new mathematics was a revelation to those who knew
him intimately. They began to do it themselves. His ease and
fertility of invention proved a constant encouragement, while
his contempt for provincial stupidities, such as the American
hieroglyphics for Π and _e_, which have even found their way
into Webster’s Dictionary, made each young worker apply to himself
the strictest tests.--HALSTED, G. B.
_F. Cajori’s Teaching and History of
Mathematics in the U. S. (Washington,
1890), p. 265._
=1040.= Sylvester’s writings are flowery and eloquent. He was
able to make the dullest subject bright, fresh and interesting.
His enthusiasm is evident in every line. He would get quite close
up to his subject, so that everything else looked small in
comparison, and for the time would think and make others think
that the world contained no finer matter for contemplation. His
handwriting was bad, and a trouble to his printers. His papers
were finished with difficulty. No sooner was the manuscript in
the editor’s hands than alterations, corrections, ameliorations
and generalizations would suggest themselves to his mind, and
every post would carry further directions to the editors and
printers.--MACMAHON. P. A.
_Nature, Vol. 55 (1897), p. 494._
=1041.= The enthusiasm of Sylvester for his own work, which manifests
itself here as always, indicates one of his characteristic qualities:
a high degree of _subjectivity_ in his productions and publications.
Sylvester was so fully possessed by the matter which for the time
being engaged his attention, that it appeared to him and was
designated by him as the summit of all that is important, remarkable
and full of future promise. It would excite his phantasy and power
of imagination in even a greater measure than his power of
reflection, so much so that he could never marshal the ability to
master his subject-matter, much less to present it in an orderly
manner.
Considering that he was also somewhat of a poet, it will be easier
to overlook the poetic flights which pervade his writing, often
bombastic, sometimes furnishing apt illustrations; more damaging
is the complete lack of form and orderliness of his publications
and their sketchlike character, ... which must be accredited at
least as much to lack of objectivity as to a superfluity of
ideas. Again, the text is permeated with associated emotional
expressions, bizarre utterances and paradoxes and is everywhere
accompanied by notes, which constitute an essential part of
Sylvester’s method of presentation, embodying relations, whether
proximate or remote, which momentarily suggested themselves. These
notes, full of inspiration and occasional flashes of genius, are
the more stimulating owing to their incompleteness. But none of
his works manifest a desire to penetrate the subject from all
sides and to allow it to mature; each mere surmise, conceptions
which arose during publication, immature thoughts and even errors
were ushered into publicity at the moment of their inception, with
utmost carelessness, and always with complete unfamiliarity of the
literature of the subject. Nowhere is there the least trace of
self-criticism. No one can be expected to read the treatises
entire, for in the form in which they are available they fail to
give a clear view of the matter under contemplation.
Sylvester’s was not a harmoniously gifted or well-balanced mind,
but rather an instinctively active and creative mind, free from
egotism. His reasoning moved in generalizations, was frequently
influenced by analysis and at times was guided even by mystical
numerical relations. His reasoning consists less frequently
of pure intelligible conclusions than of inductions, or rather
conjectures incited by individual observations and verifications.
In this he was guided by an algebraic sense, developed through
long occupation with processes of forms, and this led him luckily
to general fundamental truths which in some instances remain
veiled. His lack of system is here offset by the advantage of
freedom from purely mechanical logical activity.
The exponents of his essential characteristics are an intuitive
talent and a faculty of invention to which we owe a series of
ideas of lasting value and bearing the germs of fruitful methods.
To no one more fittingly than to Sylvester can be applied one of
the mottos of the Philosophic Magazine:
“Admiratio generat quaestionem, quaestio investigationem
investigatio inventionem.”--NOETHER, M.
_Mathematische Annalen, Bd. 50 (1898),
pp. 155-160._
=1042.= Perhaps I may without immodesty lay claim to the
appellation of Mathematical Adam, as I believe that I have given
more names (passed into general circulation) of the creatures of
the mathematical reason than all the other mathematicians of the
age combined.--SYLVESTER, J. J.
_Nature, Vol. 37 (1887-1888), p. 162._
=1043.= Tait dubbed Maxwell dp/dt, for according to
thermodynamics dp/dt = JCM (where C denotes Carnot’s function)
the initials of (J. C.) Maxwell’s name. On the other hand Maxwell
denoted Thomson by T and Tait by T′; so that it became customary
to quote Thomson and Tait’s Treatise on Natural Philosophy as T
and T′.--MACFARLANE, A.
_Bibliotheca Mathematica, Bd. 3 (1903),
p. 189._
=1044.= In future times Tait will be best known for his work in
the quaternion analysis. Had it not been for his expositions,
developments and applications, Hamilton’s invention would be
today, in all probability, a mathematical curiosity.
--MACFARLANE, A.
_Bibliotheca Mathematica, Bd. 3 (1903),
p. 189._
=1045.= Not seldom did he [Sir William Thomson], in his writings,
set down some mathematical statement with the prefacing remark
“it is obvious that” to the perplexity of mathematical readers,
to whom the statement was anything but obvious from such
mathematics as preceded it on the page. To him it was obvious for
physical reasons that might not suggest themselves at all to the
mathematician, however competent.--THOMPSON, S. P.
_Life of Lord Kelvin (London, 1910), p.
1136._
=1046.= The following is one of the many stories told of “old
Donald McFarlane” the faithful assistant of Sir William Thomson.
The father of a new student when bringing him to the University,
after calling to see the Professor [Thomson] drew his assistant
to one side and besought him to tell him what his son must do
that he might stand well with the Professor. “You want your son
to stand weel with the Profeessorr?” asked McFarlane. “Yes.”
“Weel, then, he must just have a guid bellyful o’ mathematics!”
--THOMPSON, S. P.
_Life of Lord Kelvin (London, 1910), p.
420._
=1047.= The following story (here a little softened from the
vernacular) was narrated by Lord Kelvin himself when dining at
Trinity Hall:--
A certain rough Highland lad at the university had done
exceedingly well, and at the close of the session gained prizes
both in mathematics and in metaphysics. His old father came up
from the farm to see his son receive the prizes, and visited the
College. Thomson was deputed to show him round the place. “Weel,
Mr. Thomson,” asked the old man, “and what may these mathematics
be, for which my son has getten a prize?” “I told him,” replied
Thomson, “that mathematics meant reckoning with figures, and
calculating.” “Oo ay,” said the old man, “he’ll ha’ getten that
fra’ me: I were ever a braw hand at the countin’.” After a pause
he resumed: “And what, Mr. Thomson, might these metapheesics be?”
“I endeavoured,” replied Thomson, “to explain how metaphysics was
the attempt to express in language the indefinite.” The old
Highlander stood still and scratched his head. “Oo ay: may be
he’ll ha’ getten that fra’ his mither. She were aye a bletherin’
body.”--THOMPSON, S. P.
_Life of Lord Kelvin (London, 1910), p.
1124._
=1048.= Lord Kelvin, unable to meet his classes one day, posted
the following notice on the door of his lecture room,--
“Professor Thomson will not meet his classes today.” The
disappointed class decided to play a joke on the professor.
Erasing the “c” they left the legend to read,--
“Professor Thomson will not meet his lasses today.” When the
class assembled the next day in anticipation of the effect of
their joke, they were astonished and chagrined to find that the
professor had outwitted them. The legend of yesterday was now
found to read,--
“Professor Thomson will not meet his asses today.”[9]
--NORTHRUP, CYRUS.
_University of Washington Address,
November 2, 1908._
[9] Author’s note. My colleague, Dr. E. T. Bell,
informs me that this same anecdote is
associated with the name of J. S. Blackie,
Professor of Greek at Aberdeen and Edinburgh.
=1049.= One morning a great noise proceeded from one of the
classrooms [of the Braunsberger gymnasium] and on investigation
it was found that Weierstrass, who was to give the recitation,
had not appeared. The director went in person to Weierstrass’
dwelling and on knocking was told to come in. There sat
Weierstrass by a glimmering lamp in a darkened room though it was
daylight outside. He had worked the night through and had not
noticed the approach of daylight. When the director reminded him
of the noisy throng of students who were waiting for him, his
only reply was that he could impossibly interrupt his work; that
he was about to make an important discovery which would attract
attention in scientific circles.--LAMPE, E.
_Karl Weierstrass: Jahrbuch der
Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung, Bd.
6 (1897), pp. 38-39._
=1050.= Weierstrass related ... that he followed Sylvester’s
papers on the theory of algebraic forms very attentively until
Sylvester began to employ Hebrew characters. That was more than
he could stand and after that he quit him.--LAMPE, E.
_Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau, Bd.
12 (1897), p. 361._