The Mathematical Association

Abstract

THE annual meeting of the Mathematical Association was held in the London Day Training Col lege, Southampton Row, on January 7 and 8, under the presidency of Prof. E. T. Whittaker. At the advanced section on the evening of January 7 the president gave a lecture on “A Survey of the Numerical Methods o of Solving Equations.” He described in some detail “iterative processes” for approximating to the roots and graphical methods of circumscribing the regions on the Argand plane, in which the various roots lay. The Lobachefsky-Graeffe method of approximating to the roots of equations and power series was described in considerable detail. In the animated discussion to which this lecture gave rise it was clearly seen that a wider knowledge of practical computative processes is a desideratum in all branches of mathematical work, which has been practically neglected hitherto in the schools and universities. It was also felt that such practical numerical work was the best possible introduction to the formal study of function theory, many of the ideas underlying which are usually presented in an entirely abstract way, whereas they present themselves naturally and of necessity in less general forms in the science of computation.