Karen Hunger Parshall, a senior historian of mathematics,offers the first biographical study of JamesJoseph Sylvester and his work. A brilliant Cambridge studentat first denied a degree because of his faith, Sylvestercame twice to America to teach mathematics, ultimatelybecoming one of Daniel Coit Gilman's faculty recruitsat Johns Hopkins in 1876 and winning the coveted SavilianProfessorship of Geometry at Oxford in 1883. Heheld professorships of natural philosophy, worked as anactuary, was called to the bar, and taught mathematics tocadets training for engineering and artillery posts in theBritish Army. During his long, distinguished career healso edited England's Quarterly Journal of Pure and AppliedMathematics and established the American Journalof Mathematics, the first sustained mathematics researchjournal in the United States.Situating Sylvester's life within the political, religious, mathematical, and social currents of nineteenth-century England, Parshall penetrates the myth of this venerated figure, revealing how helived, the choices he made and why, how the world in which he lived affected himand how he affectedthat world. The story of Sylvester's life sheds light on the evolution of mathematical thought.It also examines the ways in which mathematics may be done and what factors may shape themathematician's ideas. Parshall explores the development of academic professionalization, nineteenth-century mathematical culture, and the emergence of modern algebra as a mathematical discipline.She highlights the human side of what many view as that most arcane and otherworldlyof intellectual endeavors, mathematics, which indeed answers to such diverse factors as religion,ego, and depression. 8 halftones, 5 line drawings.
