The forgotten mathematician

摘要

It is not surprising that Arthur Cayley is a forgotten figure of the Victorian age, but it is wholly admirable that a modern biographer should enquire into his life and work so that we can judge him for ourselves. When Alexander Macfarlane gave his lectures on Ten British Mathematicians in 1901-04 he included Cayley; a century later, Ivor Grattan-Guinness edited Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics 1640 to 1940 and Cayley was missing.