James Joseph Sylvester

James Joseph Sylvester (September 3, 1814 London – March 15, 1897 Oxford) was an English mathematician. He made fundamental contributions to matrix theory, invariant theory, number theory, partition theory and combinatorics. He played a leadership role in American mathematics in the later half of the 19th century as a professor at the Johns Hopkins University and as founder of the American Journal of Mathematics. At his death, he was professor at Oxford. Sylvester was born "James Joseph" into a Jewish family, he brought up in the Jewish faith and remained an observant Jew for the rest of his life . He adopted the surname "Sylvester" when his older brother did so. His brother was emigrating to the United States, a country which at that time required all immigrants to have a given name, a middle name, and a surname. At the age of 14, Sylvester started attending the University of London, where he was a student of Augustus De Morgan. He was soon expelled however, for stealing a knife... full article at wikipedia