A distinguished mathematician and notable university teacher, Isaac Todhunter (1820 84) became known for the successful textbooks he produced as well as for a work ethic that was extraordinary, even by Victorian standards. A scholar who read all the major European languages, Todhunter was an open-minded man who admired George Boole and helped introduce the moral science examination at Cambridge. His many gifts enabled him to produce the histories of mathematical subjects which form his lasting memorial. First published between 1886 and 1893, the present work was the last of these. Edited and...

Before his untimely death from typhoid, William Spottiswoode (1825-83) had served as president of the London Mathematical Society, the British Association, and the Royal Society. In addition to publishing widely in mathematics and the experimental physical sciences, he restored the fortunes of his family printing firm, Eyre and Spottiswoode, the Queen's printers. An enthusiast for the popularisation of science, he lectured to large audiences at the Royal Institution, the South Kensington College of Science, and at British Association meetings. He also gave scientific talks at the school set...

First published in 1892, this important work by the mathematician Karl Pearson (1857-1936) presents a thoroughly positivist account of the nature of science. Pearson claims that 'the scientific method is the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge', rejecting additional fields of inquiry such as metaphysics. He also emphasises that science can, and should, describe only the 'how' of phenomena and never the 'why'. A scholar of King's College, Cambridge, and later a professor at King's College and University College London, Pearson made significant contributions to the philosophy of...

Awarded the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1901 for his work on chemical dynamics and on osmotic pressure in solutions, the Dutch scientist Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff (1852 1911) was also a pioneer in the field of stereochemistry - the three-dimensional analysis of chemical structures. This 1898 publication is based on the revised and expanded German translation of his Dix annees dans l'histoire d'une theorie (1887), itself an updated version of his major work La chimie dans l'espace (1875). Translated and edited by the English chemist Arnold Eiloart, it covers the stereochemistry of...

Many of the modern methods of structural analysis based on concepts of virtual work and energy were developed and popularised in Italy in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Building on the work of Luigi Menabrea, the mathematician Carlo Alberto Castigliano (1847-84) provided the first full proof of these methods in his 1873 dissertation while based in Turin. Equally important was his popularisation of the theory in his Theorie de l'equilibre des systemes elastiques et ses applications (1879), in which he applied his theory to a wide range of important real-world cases. The work is...

A student of Trinity College and a member of the Cambridge Apostles, William Kingdon Clifford (1845-79) graduated as second wrangler in the mathematical tripos, became a professor of applied mathematics at University College London in 1871, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1874. The present work was begun by Clifford during a remarkably productive period of ill health, yet it remained unfinished at his death. The statistician and philosopher of science Karl Pearson (1857-1936) was invited to edit and complete the work, finally publishing it in 1885. It tackles five of the most...

Born into a Newcastle coal mining family, Charles Hutton (1737 1823) displayed mathematical ability from an early age. He rose to become professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy and foreign secretary of the Royal Society. First published in 1795 6, this two-volume illustrated encyclopaedia aimed to supplement the great generalist reference works of the Enlightenment by focusing on philosophical and mathematical subjects; the coverage ranges across mathematics, astronomy, natural philosophy and engineering. Almost a century old, the last comparable reference work in English was...

Richard Inwards (1840-1937) trained as a mining engineer, working on projects in Europe and South America (his book on Tiwanaku in Bolivia, The Temple of the Andes, is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection). A fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, Inwards became well known in scientific circles. Weather Lore was first published in 1869, with this 1893 second edition including new entries from the United States. Compiled from sources as diverse as Hesiod, the Bible and Francis Bacon, the collection includes the notable observations that 'if...

Born into a Newcastle coal mining family, Charles Hutton (1737 1823) displayed mathematical ability from an early age. He rose to become professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy and foreign secretary of the Royal Society. First published in 1795 6, this two-volume illustrated encyclopaedia aimed to supplement the great generalist reference works of the Enlightenment by focusing on philosophical and mathematical subjects; the coverage ranges across mathematics, astronomy, natural philosophy and engineering. Almost a century old, the last comparable reference work in English was...

It is not known why Caroline Molesworth (1794 1872) began to make these detailed observations in the garden of her home in Cobham, Surrey. She was interested in botany, and when she moved with her widowed mother from London to Surrey in 1823, she undertook an almost daily survey of nineteen categories of information, which she maintained (with help in later years, as her health failed) until 1867. This 1880 publication, edited with a biographical introduction by the entomologist Eleanor Ormerod (1828 1901), summarises Molesworth's records for the period 1825 50. Ormerod explains the methods...