SYLVESTER, JAMES JOSEPH ( 1814-97 ) . One of the foremost English mathematicians of the nineteenth century. He was born in Lon don, of Jewish parents. and received his early education in a Jewish school. He then attended the Royal Institution school in Liverpool, and thence proceeded to Saint John's. Cambridge (1831). As a Jew he was barred from taking a degree, and it was not until the passing of the Tests Act that he obtained his B.A. at Cam bridge (1572). ITe studied at the Inner Temple after leaving Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1850. Sylvesterwas appointed professor of nat ural philosophy at University College. London, in 1S37, and was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1839. In 1841 he was appointed professor of mathematics in the University of Virginia, but soon after (1S45) returned to England, where he took up the work of an actuary. In 1855 he be came professor of mathematics at the Royal Mili tary Academy at Woolwich, where he remained for 15 years. In 1877 he became the first pro fessor of mathematics at Johns Hopkins Uni versity. which position he held for seven years,
returning to England to accept the Savilian pro fessorship of geometry at Oxford. He founded the American Journal of Mathematics and was for some years its editor.
Sylvester's eontributions were almost exclu sively in the form of memoirs, scattered through various scientific journals and the proceedings of various societies. They are devoted chiefly to the theories of algebraic forms (see Foams), in which he was the recognized leader of the mathe matical world. Ile and Cayley (q.v.) con tributed more than any of their contemporaries to the theory of invariants, and he may be said to have practically created the vocabulary of the subject. He also published a work on Laws of Verse (1870), a subject in which lie always showed an interest. Consult obituary notices in various scientifie journals in 1S97; and Franklin, Address Commemoratirc of Sy/rester (Baltimore. 1897).