Approximately 35 letters, pamphlets, booklets, and leaflets are reprinted here. Written between 1860 and 1897, some are attributed to Dodgson, some to Lewis Carroll, and others to Phayllus, East Sheen, Sir John Lubbock, Arthur Cohen, W.C. Sidgwick, F.R.C., G.A. Simcox, Lord Salisbury, and Dynamite--but they are all the work of one man. The brief pieces discuss fair elections, proportional representation, political humor, and sports (especially lawn tennis). Mathematical and statistical issues are placed in the foreground. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is best known for his 'Alice' books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, written under his pen name of Lewis Carroll. Yet, whilst lauded for his work in children's fiction and his pioneering work in the world of Victorian photography, his everyday job was a lecturer in Mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford University. The Mathematical World of Charles L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) explores the academic background behind this complex individual, outlining his mathematical life, describing his writings in geometry, algebra, logic, the theory of voting, and recreational mathematics, before going on to discuss his mathematical legacy. This is the first academic work that collects the research on Dodgson's wide-ranging mathematical achievements into a single practical volume. Much material appears here for the first time, such as Dodgson's personal letters and drawings, as well as the results of recent investigations into the life and work of Dodgson. Complementing this are many illustrations, both historical and explanatory, as well as a full mathematical bibliography of Dodgson's mathematical publications.
This is the story of the intellectual and social life of a community, and of its interactions with the wider world. For eight centuries mathematics has been researched and studied at Oxford, and the subject and its teaching have undergone profound changes during that time. This highly readable and beautifully illustrated book reveals the richness and influence of Oxford's mathematical tradition and the fascinating characters that helped to shape it. The story begins with the founding of the University of Oxford and the establishing of the medieval curriculum, in which mathematics had an important role. The Black Death, the advent of printing, the Civil War, and the Newtonian revolution all had a great influence on the development of mathematics at Oxford. So too did many well-known figures: Roger Bacon, Henry Savile, Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren, Edmond Halley, Florence Nightingale, Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), and G. H. Hardy, to name but a few. Later chapters bring us to the 20th century, with some entertaining reminiscences by Sir Michael Atiyah of the thirty years he spent as an Oxford mathematician. In this second edition the story is brought right up to the opening of the new Mathematical Institute in 2013 with a foreword from Marcus du Sautoy and recent developments from Peter M. Neumann.
Though popular opinion would have us see Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There as whimsical, nonsensical, and thoroughly enjoyable stories told mostly for children; contemporary research has shown us there is a vastly greater depth to the stories than would been seen at first glance. Building on the now popular idea amongst Alice enthusiasts, that the Alice books - at heart - were intended for adults as well as children, Laura White takes current research in a new, fascinating direction. During the Victorian era of the book’s original publication, ideas about nature and our relation to nature were changing drastically. The Alice Books and the Contested Ground of the Natural World argues that Lewis Carroll used the book’s charm, wit, and often puzzling conclusions to counter the emerging tendencies of the time which favored Darwinism and theories of evolution and challenged the then-conventional thinking of the relationship between mankind and nature. Though a scientist and ardent student of nature himself, Carroll used his famously playful language, fantastic worlds and brilliant, often impossible characters to support more the traditional, Christian ideology of the time in which mankind holds absolute sovereignty over animals and nature.
“A fine mathematical biography.”—John Allen Paulos, New York Times Book Review Just when we thought we knew everything about Lewis Carroll, here comes this “insightful . . . scholarly . . . serious” (John Butcher, American Scientist) biography that will appeal to Alice fans everywhere. Fascinated by the inner life of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Robin Wilson, a Carroll scholar and a noted mathematics professor, has produced this revelatory book—filled with more than one hundred striking and often playful illustrations—that examines the many inspirations and sources for Carroll’s fantastical writings, mathematical and otherwise. As Wilson demonstrates, Carroll made significant contributions to subjects as varied as voting patterns and the design of tennis tournaments, in the process creating large numbers of imaginative recreational puzzles based on mathematical ideas. Some images in this ebook have been redacted.
The present volume of the Handbook of the History of Logic is designed to establish 19th century Britain as a substantial force in logic, developing new ideas, some of which would be overtaken by, and other that would anticipate, the century's later capitulation to the mathematization of logic. British Logic in the Nineteenth Century is indispensable reading and a definitive research resource for anyone with an interest in the history of logic.- Detailed and comprehensive chapters covering the entire range of modal logic - Contains the latest scholarly discoveries and interpretative insights that answer many questions in the field of logic
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson--known better by his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll--was a 19th century English logician, mathematician, photographer, and novelist. He is especially remembered for his children's tale Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass. By the time of Dodgson's death in 1898, Alice (the integration of the two volumes) had become the most popular children's book in England. By the time of his centenary in 1932, it was perhaps the most famous in the world. This book presents a complete catalogue of Dodgson's personal library, with attention to every book the author is known to have owned or read. Alphabetized entries fully describe each book, its edition, its contents, its importance, and any particular relevance it might have had to Dodgson. The library not only provides a plethora of fodder for further study on Dodgson, but also reflects the Victorian world of the second half of the 19th century, a time of unprecedented investigation, experimentation, invention, and imagination. Dodgson's volumes represent a vast array of academic interests from Victorian England and beyond, including homeopathic medicine, spiritualism, astrology, evolution, women's rights, children's literature, linguistics, theology, eugenics, and many others. The catalogue is designed for scholars seeking insight into the mind of Charles Dodgson through his books.
This gorgeous 150th anniversary edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is also a revelatory work of scholarship. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland--published 150 years ago in 1865--is a book many of us love and feel we know well. But it turns out we have only scratched the surface. Scholar David Day has spent many years down the rabbit hole of this children's classic and has emerged with a revelatory new view of its contents. What we have here, he brilliantly and persuasively argues, is a complete classical education in coded form--Carroll's gift to his "wonder child" Alice Liddell. In two continuous commentaries, woven around the complete text of the novel for ease of cross-reference on every page, David Day reveals the many layers of teaching, concealed by manipulation of language, that are carried so lightly in the beguiling form of a fairy tale. These layers relate directly to Carroll's interest in philosophy, history, mathematics, classics, poetry, spiritualism and even to his love of music--both sacred and profane. His novel is a memory palace, given to Alice as the great gift of an education. It was delivered in coded form because in that age, it was a gift no girl would be permitted to receive in any other way. Day also shows how a large number of the characters in the book are based on real Victorians. Wonderland, he shows, is a veritable "Who's Who" of Oxford at the height of its power and influence in the Victorian Age. There is so much to be found behind the imaginary characters and creatures that inhabit the pages of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. David Day's warm, witty and brilliantly insightful guide--beautifully designed and stunningly illustrated throughout in full colour--will make you marvel at the book as never before.
Many commentaries have been devoted to Lewis Carroll''s masterpiece, Alice''s Adventures in Wonderland. The interpretations range from Freudian analysis to speculations about the real-life people who may have inspired the animal characters. In this unique approach to interpreting Alice, the fruit of ten years of research, Dr. Bernard M. Patten shows that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, fused his passion for logic, mathematics, and games with his love of words and nonsense stories to produce a multifaceted, intricately structured work of literature. Patten provides a chapter-by-chapter skeleton key to Alice, which meticulously demonstrates how its various episodes reveal Dodgson''s profound knowledge of the rules of clear thinking, informal and formal logic, symbolic logic, and human nature.As Patten makes clear, Alice''s Adventures in Wonderland, far from being just an entertaining children''s book, is more complex and deeply reflective of Dodgson''s character than it may seem. By making an effort to understand its deeper layers, both children and adults may profit from this masterful tale by learning to think better and, along the way, having fun.
This book contains transcripts from Online Alpha discussions where the epic and narrative structure of SPACE 1999 is being discussed by comparing episodes with themes, characters and elements of plot from the Homeric Odyssey and Lewis Carroll's stories about Alice. The discussion is motivated by questions raised in the scholarly literature and earlier Online Alpha debates about how to make sense of SPACE 1999 from the viewpoint of critical theory. The book has been developed on an idealistic basis. It is sold at the lowest price the publisher was willing to accept. A free e-book version can be downloaded at www.lulu.com.
