TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 



Skctiox a.— MATHE:\iATlCAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



President op tub Section — Professor John Purser, M.A., 

 LL.D., M.R.I.A. 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11. 



The President delivered tlie following Address : — 



In opening our proceedings to-day allow me at the outset to express my deep' 

 sense of the honour the Association has conferred upon me in asking me to preside 

 over this Section. 



My predecessors in this Chair have usually given you a survey of some depart- 

 ment of Mathematics or Physics, tracing what had been already accomplished in 

 that department and indicating the nature of the problems which still awaited 

 solution . 



May I crave your indulgence if I deviate from this course and, following the 

 suggestion of some of my friends, take the opportunity of the Association meeting 

 on Irish soil to give you a slight historical sketch of our Irish School of Mathe- 

 matics and Physics ? 



In attempting such a review, for the sake of hrevity as well as for other 

 reasons, I shall confine it to the work of those who are no longer with us, and I 

 would not carry it further back than the beginning of last century. This seems a 

 natural starting point, as there was at that time a very marked revival of the study 

 of science in the University of Dublin, a revival largely due to the influence of 

 Provost Bartholomew Lloyd. 



Lloyd won his Fellowship in Trinity College a few years before the century 

 opened, and subsequently filled in succession the Chairs of Mathematics and' 

 Natural Philosophy. In both departments he imported a radical change into the 

 methods of teaching. 1 Jy his treatises on Analytical Geometry and on Mechanical 

 Philosophy he introduced the study of what was then called the French Mathe- 

 matics, in other words the more advanced Analytic Methods, which were in use 

 on the Continent. In 1831 he was appointed Provost of the College, and his 

 tenure of the ortice, though brief, was signalised by many important improve- 

 ments and new developments efiected in the University teaching. 



Dr. Bartholomew Lloyd was President of one of the earliest Meetings of this 

 Association, that held in Dublin in 18;i5. 



His son. Dr. Humphrey Lloyd, had a course which was a singularly close 

 parallel to his father's. 



He won his Fellowship in 1824, and succeeded his father in the Chair of Natural 

 Philosophy. He also was afterwards appointed Provost, and he too presided over 

 another DubUn Meeting of this Association, that held in 1857. He also, in this 

 again following in his father's steps, wrote important works on difl'erent branches of 

 Physics ; ' Light and Vision,' a systematic treatise on plane as distmct from 

 physical optics, ' Lectures on the "Wave Theory of Light,' and lastly a treatise on 

 * Magnetism.' 



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