And his dislike of mere
theoretical problems and investigations was proportionately great. He
was continually at war with some of the resident Cambridge
mathematicians on this subject. Year after year he criticised the
Senate House Papers and the Smith's Prize Papers question by question
very severely: and conducted an interesting and acrimonious private
correspondence with Professor Cayley on the same subject. His great
mathematical powers and his command of mathematics are sufficiently
evidenced by the numerous mathematical treatises of the highest order
which he published, a list of which is appended to this biography. But
a very important feature of his investigations was the thoroughness of
them. He was never satisfied with leaving a result as a barren
mathematical expression. He would reduce it, if possible, to a
practical and numerical form, at any cost of labour: and would use any
approximations which would conduce to this result, rather than leave
the result in an unfruitful condition. He never shirked arithmetical
work: the longest and most laborious reductions had no terrors for
him, and he was remarkably skilful with the various mathematical
expedients for shortening and facilitating arithmetical work of a
complex character.
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