Arthur Cayley as Sadleirian professor: A glimpse of mathematics teaching at 19th-century Cambridge (Q1300642)

Main part of the article is the hitherto unpublished inaugural lecture given by Arthur Cayley (1821-1895) on the occasion of obtaining the Sadleirian Chair of pure mathematics on 3 November 1863. Concentrating attention in the period 1638-1750, Cayley explained the prevalent basic notions of analytic geometry including the geometric interpretation of complex numbers, the theory of pole and polar, points and lines at infinity, plane curves, the projective definition of distance, Pascal and Maclaurin theorems. Apart from commentaries on the lecture itself, the article offers a good ``glimpse'' of mathematical education at Cambridge in the times when all turned around the mathematical tripos and the new impetus for research only began to be recognized. Well documented, it is a good reading.