Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1907-01-11

! recall IL. which, IT - SAID. he did WIN
remarkable eXactnesS. At another time
] the grand duke of Florence asked if he
kcOuld procure Il certain book for him.
| Immediately came the response: NO.
sire; it is impossible. There is but one
III the world. That is in the grand
seigniOr's library at Constantinople and
is the seventh book on the seventh
shelf on the right hand as you go in
The other instance in the seventeenth
century is that of the Rev. DIR. John
Wallis. 1t is not. however. as Il theo-
Logan that Wallis name is enrolled in
the temple of fame. but as mathema-
tician. In mathematical history he
ranks as the greatest of Newton's Eng
fish precursors. He was started on his
mathematical career by reading Ough-
tred'S "Clavic Mathematical" but the
special bent OF his genius came from
TOrricelli's writings on The Method of
IndivisibleS." To this he applied the
Cartesian analysis and produced his
great work, the ''ArthmCtica Infnitori-
um'-''the most stimulating mathe
NAUTICAL work so far published in Eng
land" Here he makes the successful
attempt 10 solve number of the more
simple problems of the calculus by the
summation of series to infin:ty. The
work was one of great influence. New
ton read it while an undergraduate at
the university and from it Immediately
derived his binomial formula. The
power Of concentration and OF memory
We're both very strong with WalIis-so
strong, it is said, that on one occasion
while in bed in the dark he extracted
the square root of Il number Of fifty
three places to twenty-seven terms and
repeated the result twenty days after
ward"
These examples of retentive memory
are quite well authenticated and give
plausibility to the possible truth of 9th
ers frequently cited. Pliny tells us
that Cyrus the Great knew the names
of all his soldiers, and Cicero in his
DE SenectUte" says that Themistocles
could call by name the 10000 citizens
of Athens. From Cicero, too, we learn
something of the remarkable memory
of SOphOcles. who in old age when |
judicial proceedings had been institut- |
ed to determine his mental competency |
rected TO the judges the "Oedipus'' at !
COIOna to prove his mind was not fail |
ing.
Plato makes Hippias boast that lie |
could repeat 500 words after hearing |
them once, but this is nothing COM
pared with the claims OF Seneca. In |
his declamatiOnS in speaking of the |
former tenacity of his memory he says |
that he was able TO repeat 1000 names
i'll the order in which they had been |
given TO him. He relates, too, that on /
one occasion in his student days, after |
the different pupils of his preceptor |
had recited 200 uncOnnected verses, he
them in reverse order-that
is, he began with the last and proceed
ed TO the first uttered. A still more re-
instance is mentioned by Sir
William Hamilton in his Lectures on
and Logic" He makes
the statement and cites Muretus as
that a young COrsican could
repeat in either direct or reverse or
der or begin at any point and repeat
both ways list of $4,000 names.
1t is related that both Horace Yer
net and Gustave Dore could paint
portrait from memory. There is also
Il story that is more than tradition that
WolfGang Mozart set down the whole
of the Sistine Miserere from memory