J. W. Samuel B.A

From the papers of L.R. Reeve* this record of a remarkable educationalist, mathematician and speaker. He is unknown to  Wikipedia and online research reveals very little.  He contributed some photographs to the Country in Town  exhibition (July 2 to July 16, 1908) at  Whitechapel Art Gallery to illustrate 'Day Educational Rambles' in the education section. He appears to have received a double honours degree at London University in Anglo- Saxon and Early English (1901?.) As with many of Reeve's subjects he was a remarkable speaker...

J. W. SAMUEL, B.A.

It was during a conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, London, that I first saw J. W. Samuel. He was delivering an address, and I recall vividly the profound impression he made upon me, for I was listening to a man who was one of the most effective speakers in London.

James Joseph Sylvester—the mathematical genius snubbed by Cambridge

The rule among the dons of Oxford and Cambridge up to the end of the nineteenth century was that you were permitted to take a degree at these  'august' institutions as long as you weren’t a dissenter or a Jew. At around about the same time, when the first colleges for women were established, similar restrictions were applied to women, who were only granted degrees at Oxford in 1920, and shamefully, at Cambridge in 1948. At the latter University, woman  were palmed off with 'certificates' up to that date.

Today, when we are so aware of discrimination against minorities, mathematicians who admire the astonishing achievements of the Jewish-born James Joseph Sylvester (1814- 97) invariably pick up on the fact that despite being ranked second wrangler in the 1837 Cambridge University Tripos, Sylvester, as someone who as a Jew had refused to take the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England, was barred from graduating. Nor was he permitted to compete for a fellowship or obtain a Smith’s prize. A year later, and still without a degree,  Sylvester was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of London, where he had been a student for a short time from the age of 14.

Mersenne's Numbers (R.T. Gould / Fermat)

Found - a fascinating forgotten work Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts (Allan, London 1928) by R.T. Gould. Rupert Thomas Gould (1890 – 1948), was a lieutenant Commander in the British Royal Navy noted for his contributions to horology. While in the navy in WW1 he suffered a nervous breakdown. During long recuperation, he was stationed at the Hydrographer's Department at the Admiralty, where he became an expert on various aspects of naval history, cartography, and expeditions of the polar regions. He gained permission in 1920 to restore the marine chronometers of John Harrison, and this work was completed in 1933. Jeremy Irons played him in Longitude, a dramatisation of Dava Sobel's book about John Harrison Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, which recounted in part Gould's work in restoring the chronometers.

Something of a polymath, he wrote an eclectic series of books on topics ranging from horology to the Loch Ness Monster. He was a member of the Sette of Odd Volumes (Brother Hydrographer) and the book Oddities is dedicated to the club. He was a science educator, giving a series of talks for the BBC's Children's Hour starting in January 1934 under the name "The Stargazer", and these collected talks were later published. He was a member of the BBC radio panel Brains Trust. He umpired tennis matches on the Centre Court at Wimbledon on many occasions during the 1930s. This is his chapter on Marin Mersenne (and of course Fermat). The reference to Mr R.E. Powers 'an American computer' dates the book, back then it meant 'one who computes..'
r on

MERSENNE'S NUMBERS 

  Many, I have no doubt, have heard of the enthusiastic Don who once proposed a toast to "Pure Scholarship", coupling with it the pious aspiration, "And may it never be of any damned use to anybody". Like most other exemplary and edifying fables, it has been fathered upon many people and located in many places.

  There is one department of human knowledge concerning which we may safely assume that this aspiration will always be fulfilled. The utility of the various branches of mathematics is, generally speaking, in inverse ratio to their purity; and even though the abstruse results of non-Euclidean geometry and similar studies are now finding comparatively practical applications in the Theory of Relativity and quantum mechanics, most of us are willing to take such matters on trust, confident that, even if there is an omitted symbol or other loose screw in the reasoning, no shipwreck, structural collapse, or other practical inconvenience can possibly result.

  And of no branch of mathematics is this more true than of the Theory of Numbers.

How many molecules in a drop of whisky?

From R. Houwink's The Odd Book of Data (Elsevier, Amsterdam 1965) obtained from the amazing library of Jeremy Beadle MBE (1948 -2008) British entertainer, television star,  hoaxer, quizmaster, book collector and philanthropist (with his blind stamp reading 'Property of Beadlebum OK?')

It's a curious ur geek book full of data such as 'the light now reaching the star Pollux tells us about Hitler's rise to power, whilst a star in the Andromeda Nebula brings us, as it were, a visual greeting from the period when Homo Sapiens made his engravings in caves (15000BC)...' Here is a piece about the number of molecules in a drop of whisky:

Peter looked askance at John who was just polishing off his umpteenth glass of whisky.
'Steady on, old man… leave a drop for the stragglers!'
'Shteady on?'  echoed John, ' Why , theresh heapsh of the shtuff…hic.  Tell you what, shport, I'll dish out a thousand molecules per second to every living soul for the next 30 odd years…hic'.
John upturned his glass and shook a single drop on to Peter's palm. 'Take care of dishtribution old shport!'