Biography of Augustus DeMorgan :: essays research papers

Augustus DeMorgan was an English mathematician, logician, and bibliographer. He was born in June 1806 at Madura, Madras presidency, India and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1823. Augustus DeMorgan had passed away on expose 18, 1871, in London.Augustus was recognized as far superior in numerical ability to any other person there, but his refusal to commit to analyse resulted in his finishing only in fourth place in his class.In 1828 he became professor of mathematics at the newly realized University College in London. He taught there until 1806, except for a break of louvre years from 1831 to 1836. DeMorgan was the first president of London Mathematical Society, which was founded in 1866.DeMorgan&8217s aim as a mathematician was to place the subject on a more rigorous foundation. As a teacher he was unrivaled, and no topic was too insignificant to receive his careful attention. In 1838 he introduced the term &8220 mathematical induction to differentiate between the hyp othetical induction of existential science and the rigorous method. Often used in mathematical proof, for march on from n to n+I.DeMorgan made his greatest contributions to knowledge. The renaissance of logical studies, which began in the first half of the 19th century, was due almost entirely to the literary works of the two British mathematicians, DeMorgan and G. Boole. He always laid much straining upon the importance of logical training. His importance in the history of logic&8217s, however, in the beginning due to his realization that the subject as it had come down from Aristole was unnecessarily restricted scope. By reflecting on the processes of mathematics, he was led like Boole, to the strong belief that a far larger number of valid inference were doable that had hitherto been recognized.His most notable achievements were to lay the foundation for the theory of relations to prepare the way to rise of modern symbolic, or mathematical, logic. His name is commemorated in DeMorgan&8217s Law, which is usually presented in the concise alternative forms ( pvq ) = p & q and ( p&q ) = p v q. These read not ( p or q ) equals not p or not q and not ( p and q ) equals not p or not q. These statements assert that the negative ( or contradictory) of an alternative trace is a conjunction which the conjuncts are the contradictions of the corresponding alternants. That the negative of a connector is an alternative proposition in which the alternants are the contradictories of the corresponding conjuncts.