A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume IIDe Morgan, Augustus
Philosophy
A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II
De Morgan, Augustus
Circle-squaring; Perpetual motion; Science -- Miscellanea; Trisection of angle
The whole of this collection passed into the hands of {298} William
Jones,[490] the father of the Indian Judge of the same name, who died in
1749. Jones was originally a teacher, but was presented with a valuable
sinecure by the interest of George, second Earl of Macclesfield, the mover
of the bill for the change of style in Britain, who died President of the
Royal Society. This change of style may perhaps be traced to the union of
energies which were brought into concert by the accident of a common
teacher: Lord Macclesfield and Lord Chesterfield,[491] the mover and the
seconder, and Daval,[492] who drew the bill, were pupils of De Moivre.[493]
Jones, who was a respectable mathematician though not an inventor,
collected the largest mathematical library of his day, and became possessor
of the papers of Collins, which contained those of Oughtred[494] and
others. Some of these papers passed into the custody of the Royal Society:
but the bulk was either bequeathed to, or purchased by, Lord Macclesfield;
and thus they found their way to Shirburn Castle, where they still remain.
A little before 1836, this collection attracted the attention of a
searching inquirer into points of mathematical history, the late Professor
Rigaud,[495] who died in 1839. He examined the whole collection of letters,
obtained Lord Macclesfield's consent to their publication, and induced the
Oxford Press to bear the expense. It must be particularly remembered that
there still remains at Shirburn Castle a {299} valuable mass of
non-epistolary manuscripts. So far as we can see, the best chance of a
further examination and publication lies in public encouragement of the
collection now before us: the Oxford Press might be induced to extend its
operations if it were found that the results were really of interest to the
literary and scientific world. Rigaud died before the work was completed,
and the publication was actually made by one of his sons, S. Jordan
Rigaud,[496] who died Bishop of Antigua. But this publication was little
noticed, for the reasons given. The completion now published consists of a
sufficient table of contents, of the briefest kind, by Professor De Morgan,
and an excellent index by the Rev. John Rigaud.[497] The work is now fairly
started on its career.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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