Historia Mathematica 26 (1999), 125–160 Article ID hmat.1999.2233, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on Arthur Cayley as Sadleirian Professor: A Glimpse of Mathematics View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.ukTeaching at 19th-Century Cambridge brought to you by CORE provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector Tony Crilly Middlesex University Business School, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT, UK E-mail:
[email protected] This article contains the hitherto unpublished text of Arthur Cayley’s inaugural professorial lecture given at Cambridge University on 3 November 1863. Cayley chose a historical treatment to explain the prevalent basic notions of analytical geometry, concentrating his attention in the period (1638–1750). Topics Cayley discussed include the geometric interpretation of complex numbers, the theory of pole and polar, points and lines at infinity, plane curves, the projective definition of distance, and Pascal’s and Maclaurin’s geometrical theorems. The paper provides a commentary on this lecture with reference to Cayley’s work in geometry. The ambience of Cambridge mathematics as it existed after 1863 is briefly discussed. C 1999 Academic Press Cet article contient le texte jusqu’ici in´editde la le¸coninaugurale de Arthur Cayley donn´ee `a l’Universit´ede Cambridge le 3 novembre 1863. Cayley choisit une approche historique pour expliquer les notions fondamentales de la g´eom´etrieanalytique, qui existaient alors, en concentrant son atten- tion sur la p´eriode1638–1750. Les sujets discut´esincluent l’interpretation g´eom´etriquedes nombres complexes, la th´eoriedes pˆoleset des polaires, les points et les lignes `al’infini, les courbes planes, la d´efinition projective de la distance, et les th´eor`emesg´eom´etriquesde Pascal et de Maclaurin.