Arthur Cayley
1821 – 1895 · aged 74
English mathematician (1821-1895)
- Born
- 16 Aug 1821 · Richmond
- Died
- 26 Jan 1895 · Cambridge
Life timeline
Their life from birth to death. On the timeline, world events of the time are shown faintly.
- 16 Aug 1821BornBorn in Richmond
- 1842AwardSmith's Prize
- 1852AwardFellow of the Royal Society
- 1859AwardRoyal Medal
- 1863 – 1895RoleSadleirian Professor of Pure Mathematics
- 1866AwardFellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1868 – 1870RoleChairperson
- 1872 – 1874RolePresident of the Royal Astronomical Society
- 1882AwardCopley Medal
- 1884AwardDe Morgan Medal
- 1890AwardOfficer of the Legion of Honour
- 26 Jan 1895DiedDied in Cambridge
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Meanwhile in the world
Major world events during their lifetime (1821 – 1895).
- 1853 – 1856Crimean War
- 1857 – 1858Indian Rebellion of 1857
- 1870 – 1871Franco-Prussian War
Biography
Arthur Cayley (16 August 1821 – 26 January 1895) was an English mathematician who worked mostly on algebra. He helped found the modern British school of pure mathematics, and was a professor at Trinity College, Cambridge for 35 years.
He postulated what is now known as the Cayley–Hamilton theorem—that every square matrix is a root of its own characteristic polynomial, and verified it for matrices of order 2 and 3. He was the first to define the concept of an abstract group, a set with a binary operation satisfying certain laws, as opposed to Évariste Galois' concept of permutation groups. In group theory, Cayley tables, Cayley graphs, and Cayley's theorem are named in his honour, as well as Cayley's formula in combinatorics.
Text from the Wikipedia article Arthur Cayley, CC BY-SA 4.0
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