THE IDEAL MATHEMATICAL SCHOOL[35]
(From “Notes by an Oxford Chiel,” 1871)
It has occurred to me to suggest for consideration how desirable roofed buildings are for carrying on mathematical calculations: in fact, the variable character of the weather in Oxford renders it highly inexpedient to attempt much occupation, of a sedentary nature, in the open air. Again, it is often impossible to carry on accurate mathematical calculations in close contiguity to one another, owing to their mutual conversation; consequently, these processes require different rooms in which irrepressible conversationalists, who are found to occur in every branch of Society, might be carefully and permanently fixed.
It may be sufficient for the present to enumerate the following requisites—others might be added as funds permit:
A. A very large room for calculating Greatest Common Measure. To this a small one might be added for Least Common Multiple: this, however, might be dispensed with.
B. A piece of open ground for keeping Roots and practising their extraction: it would be advisable to keep Square Roots by themselves, as their corners are apt to damage others.
C. A room for reducing Fractions to their Lowest Terms. This should be provided with a cellar for keeping the Lowest Terms when found, which might also be available to the general body of Undergraduates, for the purpose of “keeping Terms.”
D. A large room, which might be darkened, and fitted up with a magic lantern, for the purpose of exhibiting circulating Decimals in the act of circulation. This might also contain cupboards, fitted with glass doors, for keeping the various Scales of Notation.
E. A narrow strip of ground, railed off and carefully levelled, for investigating the properties of Asymptotes, and testing practically whether Parallel Lines meet or not: for this purpose it should reach, to use the expressive language of Euclid, “ever so far.”
This last process of “continually producing the lines” may require centuries or more, but such a period, though long in the life of an individual, is as nothing in the life of the University.
As Photography is now very much employed in recording human expressions, and might possibly be adapted to Algebraical Expressions, a small photographic room would be desirable, both for general use and for representing the various phenomena of Gravity, Disturbance of Equilibrium, Resolution, etc., which affect the features during severe mathematical operations.
[35] This whimsical skit burlesques the contents of a letter in which the Professor of Physics at Christ Church met an offer of the Clarendon Trustees by a detailed enumeration of the requirements in his own department of Natural Science.