De Morgan

De Morgan, Augustus, was born at Madura, South India, in 1806, and, going to Cambridge, came out fourth wrangler. He began to study for the bar, but in 1828 was appointed to the chair of mathematics in University College, London, then recently established. He was a voluminous writer on mathematical subjects, and occasionally dealt with astronomy, logic, and biography, exercising his abilities also as a professional actuary. He was a keen advocate of decimal coinage. His Essay on Probabilities and Treatise on the Differential and Integral Calculus are still in use. In his later years he published, under the title Formal Logic, or the Calculus of Inference, an ingenious but not very successful attempt to throw all reasoning processes into a mathematical form, now superseded, to a great extent, by the labours of Boole (q.v.). A controversy with Sir William Hamilton ensued, and, like other disputes in which De Morgan was involved, hardly enhanced his reputation. His Budget of Paradoxes (1872) is an amusing collection of the eccentric theories of circle-squarers and other scientific heretics. In 1866 he abandoned his professorship, on the curious plea that by not electing Dr. Martineau to a professorship because he was a minister of religion, the college had shown itself sectarian. He died in 1871. Latterly he paid much attention to spiritualism.