Refutation of a Pamphlet written by the Rev. John Mackey, R.C.P.,[728] entitled "A method of making a cube double of a cube, founded on the principles of elementary geometry," wherein his principles are proved erroneous, and the required solution not yet obtained. By Robert Murphy.[729] Mallow, 1824, 12mo.
This refutation was the production of an Irish boy of eighteen years old, self-educated in mathematics, the son of a shoemaker at Mallow. He died in 1843, leaving a name which is well known among mathematicians. His works on the theory of equations and on electricity, and his papers in the _Cambridge Transactions_, are all of high genius. The only account of him which I know of is that which I wrote for the _Supplement_ of the _Penny Cyclopaedia_. He was thrown by his talents into a good income at Cambridge, with no social training except penury, and very little intellectual training except mathematics. He fell into dissipation, and his scientific career was almost arrested: but he had great good in him, to my knowledge. A sentence in {350} a letter from the late Dean Peacock[730] to me--giving some advice about the means of serving Murphy--sets out the old case: "Murphy is a man whose _special_ education is in advance of his _general_; and such men are almost always difficult subjects to manage." This article having been omitted in its proper place, I put it at 1843, the date of Murphy's death.
A NEW VALUE OF [pi].
The Invisible Universe disclosed; or, the real Plan and Government of the Universe. By Henry Coleman Johnson, Esq. London, 1843, 8vo.
The book opens abruptly with:
"First demonstration. Concerning the centre: showing that, because the centre is an innermost point at an equal distance between two extreme points of a right line, and from every two relative and opposite intermediate points, it is composed of the two extreme internal points of each half of the line; each extreme internal point attracting towards itself all parts of that half to which it belongs...."
Of course the circle is squared: and the circumference is 3-1/21 diameters.
