GEORGE

See also:

• PEACOCK (Lat. Pavo, O. Eng. Pawe, Du. pauuw, Ger. Pfau, Fr. Paon)
• GEORGE PEACOCK (1791–1858)
• PEACOCK, SIR BARNES (1810-189o)
• PEACOCK, THOMAS LOVE (1785-1866)

PEACOCK (1791–1858)  , English mathematician, was born at Thornton Hall, Denton, near Darlington, on the 9th of April 1791 . He was educated at Richmond, Yorkshire, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1809 . He was second wrangler in 1812 (Sir J . F . W . Herschel being senior), was elected fellow of his college in 1814, became assistant tutor in 1815 and full tutor in 1823 . While still an undergraduate he formed a league with John Herschel and Charles Babbage, to conduct the famous struggle of " d-ism versus dot-age," which ended in the introduction into Cambridge of the continental notation in the infinitesimal calculus to the exclusion of the fluxional notation of Sir Isaac Newton . This was an important reform, not so much on account of the mere change of notation (for mathematicians follow J . L . Lagrange in using both these notations), but because it signified the opening to the mathematicians of Cambridge of the vast storehouse of continental discoveries . The analytical society thus formed in 1813 published various memoirs, and translated S . F .

Lacroix's Differential Calculus in 1816 . Peacock powerfully aided the movement by publishing in 182o A Collection of Examples of the Application of the Differential and Integral Calculus . In x841 he published a pamphlet on the university statutes, in which he indicated the necessity for reform; and in r85oand 1855 he was a member of the commission of inquiry relative to the university of Cambridge . In 1837 he was appointed Lowndean professor of astronomy . In 1839 he took the degree of D.D., and the same year was appointed by Lord Melbourne to the deanery of Ely . Peacock threw himself with characteristic ardour into the duties of this new position . He improved the sanitation of Ely, published in 184o Observations on Plans for Cathedral Reform, and carried out extensive works of restoration in his own cathedral . He was twice prolocutor of the lower house of convocation for the province of Canterbury . He was also a prime mover in the establishment of the Cambridge Astronomical Observatory, and in the founding of the Cambridge Philosophical Society . He was a fellow of the Royal, Royal Astronomical, Geological and other scientific societies . In 1838, and again in 1843, he was one of the commissioners for standards of weights and measures; and he also furnished valuable information to the commissioners on decimal coinage . He died on the 8th of November 1858 .

Peacock's

original contributions to mathematical science were concerned chiefly with the philosophy of its first principles . He did good service in systematizing the operational laws of algebra, and in throwing light upon the nature and use of imaginaries . He published, first in 183o, and then in an enlarged form in 1842, a Treatise on Algebra, in which he applied his philosophical ideas concerning algebraical analysis to the elucidation of its elements . A second great service was the publication in the British Association Reports for 1833 of his " Report on the Recent Progress and Present State of certain branches of Analysis." Modern mathematicians may find on reading this brilliant summary a good many dicta which they will call in question, but, whatever its defects may be, Peacock's report remains a work of permanent value . In 1855 he published a memoir of Thomas Young, and about the same time there appeared Young's collected works in three volumes, for the first two of which Peacock was responsible .