Description
Book SynopsisShe highlights the human side of what many view as that most arcane and otherworldly of intellectual endeavors, mathematics, which indeed answers to such diverse factors as religion, ego, and depression.
Trade ReviewA masterful biography. American Scientist 2006 An important and impressively documented contribution to the history of nineteenth-century mathematics. -- Craig G. Fraser Mathematical Reviews 2006 A thoroughly enjoyable read. -- J. W. Anderson The London Mathematical Society Newsletter 2006 This is an exceptional example of scholarly research. -- Gail Kaplan Convergence 2007 Parshall has already established herself as a leading expert on Sylvester and his milieu, carefully reconstructing the trajectory of Sylvester's professional life on the basis of copious documentary evidence, describing Sylvester's more important mathematical results in his career context, and writing for broad audiences with no detailed mathematical exposition or technical analysis of Sylvester's mathematics... Highly recommended. Choice 2007 A well-written and thorough account of its subject... a wealth of useful and well-researched information that is difficult to find elsewhere. -- Robin Wilson Historia Mathematica 2006 This well-written, thoroughly researched biography will become the definitive study of Sylvester. -- Jeremy Gray British Journal for the History of Science 2008
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Myth, the Mathematician, the Man
Chapter 1. Born to "the Faith in Which the Founder of Christianity Was Educated"
Chapter 2. A Price of Dissent
Chapter 3. The Hollow Walls of Academe
Chapter 4. Actuary by Day...Mathematician by Night
Chapter 5. Into the Invariant-Theoretic Unknown
Chapter 6. A New Beginning
Chapter 7. At War with the Military
Chapter 8. The Uneasy Years
Chapter 9. Exploring Familiar Ground on Unfamiliar Territory
Chapter 10. Tackling New Challenges in a Home Away from Home
Chapter 11. A Bittersweet Victory
Chapter 12. The Final Transition
Epilogue
Notes
References
Index
