Abstract
IN the midst of the universal cataclysm of the war, when all interests are strained towards the national defence, the London Mathematical Society has passed, without notice, its fiftieth year of activity. The first meeting was held at University College, on January 16, 1865, and heard an address by. Prof, de Morgan on the aims and prospects of the society. The de Morgan medal is a reminder for us of his predominant share in the inauguration of the society, which he did not survive long to guide. In the early days the publications consisted of a series of pamphlets separately paged, containing single communications; the names of Sylvester, Cayley, Harley, Tucker occur as authors in the first year. There followed later brief reports of meetings, along with papers by de Morgan, Sylvester, Crofton, Cayley, H. J. S. Smith, Cotterill, and others. These publications now stand as vol. i. of the first series of the Proceedings. With vol. ii., which begins with the annual general meeting of November 8, 1866, the Proceedings became crystallised into a form which has persisted substantially, except as regards size of page, to the present time. The society began operations with twenty-seven original members, nearly all of them members of, University College, London; at the end of the first year the number of members was sixty-nine, rising to ninety-four in November, 1866; and the society had already become representative of British mathematical science by having on its roll most of the eminent investigators in our subject belonging to Cambridge and Oxford, as well as London.
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The London Mathematical Society 1 . Nature 98, 319–321 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/098319a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/098319a0