Item 24/33/3 - Autograph letter signed to J.C. Adams

Identity area

Reference code

Adams/Box 24-26/Box 24/24/33/3

Unique identifier

GB 275 Adams/Box 24-26/Box 24/24/33/3

Title

Autograph letter signed to J.C. Adams

Date(s)

  • 7 Jan. 1890 (Creation)

Level of description

Item

Extent and medium

1 p paper

Context area

Name of creator

(1814-1897)

Biographical history

Mathematician. Sylvester was born in Liverpool in 1814. Originally admitted at St John's in 1831, he secured second wrangler in the mathematical tripos of 1837. Being a Jew he could not take a degree at Cambridge but he gained a BA in 1841 from Trinity College, Dublin.

In 1837 he was appointed professor of natural philosophy at University College, London and in 1839 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1844 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics in the University of Virginia, USA, but he resigned after a few months. A student who had been reading a newspaper in one of Sylvester's lectures insulted him and Sylvester struck him with a sword stick. The student collapsed in shock and Sylvester believed (wrongly) that he had killed him. He fled to New York boarding the first available ship back to England.

He worked as an actuary and lawyer for the next ten years, though still giving mathematical tuition, one of his pupils being Florence Nightingale. Whilst working at Lincoln's Inn in London he also met Arthur Cayley and they became lifelong friends. He also continued his mathematical research, publishing a number of important papers.

In 1855 Sylvester was appointed Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and he held the post until he retired in 1870. During this time the Royal Society awarded him the Royal Medal in 1861 and he was president of the London Mathematical Society in 1866.

In 1870 he published his first book and it was on poetry, entitled The Laws of Verse.

In 1877, on the foundation of the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, USA, Sylvester was made Professor of Mathematics and held that chair until 1883. During his time in Baltimore he founded the American 'Journal of Mathematics'. He was awarded the Royal Society Copley Medal in 1880. In 1883 he returned to the United Kingdom to take up the post of Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University. He was awarded the De Morgan Medal by the London Mathematical Society in 1887. With his general health failing he was finally relieved of his duties at Oxford in 1894. Sylvester died in 1897.

His mathematical researches covered a wide area but mostly he was interested in pure analysis, in particular with the theories of algebraical form and of numbers, and he is credited with the foundation of invariant algebra.

Archival history

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Content and structure area

Scope and content

Letter of introduction for J. Petersen, University of Copenhagen.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Accruals

System of arrangement

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access

Conditions governing reproduction

Language of material

Script of material

Language and script notes

Physical characteristics and technical requirements

Finding aids

Allied materials area

Existence and location of originals

Existence and location of copies

Related units of description

Related descriptions

Notes area

Alternative identifier(s)

Access points

Subject access points

Place access points

Name access points

Genre access points

Description control area

Description identifier

Institution identifier

Rules and/or conventions used

Status

Level of detail

Dates of creation revision deletion

Language(s)

Script(s)

Sources

Accession area

Related subjects

Related genres

Related places