Abstract
WE shall not enter upon any discussion as to the utility or inutility of such a work as the present, but simply confine ourselves to an account of its contents. It is not a work of yesterday, for the author tells us that it is compiled from notes “made at various periods of the last fourteen years, and chiefly during the engagements of teaching.” Mr. Carr's chief aim has been so to arrange his matter that the student may be assisted in the revision of bookwork, hence he generally confines himself to indicating the main features of a proof or to a mere reference to the theorems by which the proposition is proved. To aid in this end he has employed a system of cross-references, each article being numbered progressively in “large clarendon figures.” A feature to which the author rightly draws attention is the compression he has attained without sacrificing clearness in his “last section, in which in the space of twenty-four pages are contained more than the number of propositions usually given in treatises on geometrical conics,” together with clear large figures, and in most cases the demonstrations. This, we think, he has done well. This first part he divides into seven, sections. The first contains a large collection of mathematical tables (Factor Tables, Values of the Gamma-function, and many other useful and frequently-recurring constants), in addition to an introduction on the C.G.S. system of units. Algebra is treated of in articles 1-380; Theory of Equations, 400-593; Plane Trigonometry, 600-859; Spherical Trigonometry, 870-910; Elementary Geometry, 920-1099; Geometrical Conies, 1151-1267. It will be seen from the above numbering that there are breaks; these have been “purposely made in order to leave room for the insertion of additional matter, if it should be required in a future edition, without disturbing the original numbers and references.” It is obvious to object here that the new matter may not fit into the plan adopted in this edition.
A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics; containing Propositions, Formulæ, and Methods of Analysis, with Abridged Demonstrations.
By G. S. Carr Vol. i. Pp. xxiv. 256. (London: C. Hodgson and Son, 1880.)
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A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics; containing Propositions, Formulœ, and Methods of Analysis, with Abridged Demonstrations . Nature 22, 582 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/022582a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/022582a0