[942]. [Comte] may truly be said to have created the philosophy of higher mathematics.—Mill, J. S.
System of Logic (New York, 1846), p. 369.
[943]. These specimens, which I could easily multiply, may suffice to justify a profound distrust of Auguste Comte, wherever he may venture to speak as a mathematician. But his vast general ability, and that personal intimacy with the great Fourier, which I most willingly take his own word for having enjoyed, must always give an interest to his views on any subject of pure or applied mathematics.—Hamilton, W. R.
Graves’ Life of W. R. Hamilton (New York, 1882-1889), Vol. 3, p. 475.
[944]. The manner of Demoivre’s death has a certain interest for psychologists. Shortly before it, he declared that it was necessary for him to sleep some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour longer each day than the preceding one: the day after he had thus reached a total of something over twenty-three hours he slept up to the limit of twenty-four hours, and then died in his sleep.—Ball, W. W. R.
History of Mathematics (London, 1911), p. 394.
[945]. De Morgan was explaining to an actuary what was the chance that a certain proportion of some group of people would at the end of a given time be alive; and quoted the actuarial formula, involving π, which, in answer to a question, he explained stood for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. His acquaintance, who had so far listened to the explanation with interest, interrupted him and exclaimed, “My dear friend, that must be a delusion, what can a circle have to do with the number of people alive at a given time?”—Ball, W. W. R.
Mathematical Recreations and Problems (London, 1896), p. 180; See also De Morgan’s Budget of Paradoxes (London, 1872), p. 172.
[946]. A few days afterwards, I went to him [the same actuary referred to in 945] and very gravely told him that I had discovered the law of human mortality in the Carlisle Table, of which he thought very highly. I told him that the law was involved in this circumstance. Take the table of the expectation of life, choose any age, take its expectation and make the nearest integer a new age, do the same with that, and so on; begin at what age you like, you are sure to end at the place where the age past is equal, or most nearly equal, to the expectation to come. “You don’t mean that this always happens?”—“Try it.” He did try, again and again; and found it as I said. “This is, indeed, a curious thing; this is a discovery!” I might have sent him about trumpeting the law of life: but I contented myself with informing him that the same thing would happen with any table whatsoever in which the first column goes up and the second goes down;....—De Morgan, A.
Budget of Paradoxes (London, 1872), p. 172.