mathematics

Percival Frost

Percival Frost is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Percival Frost rather than just read about it. In short: Percival Frost (1817–1898), was an English mathematician. Life Percival Frost was born at Kingston upon Hull on 1 September 1817, the second son of Charles Frost.

Key takeaways

Percival Frost belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Percival Frost to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Percival Frost from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Percival Frost (1817–1898), was an English mathematician.

Life Percival Frost was born at Kingston upon Hull on 1 September 1817, the second son of Charles Frost. He was educated at Beverley and Oakham, and entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in October 1835, graduating B.A. as second wrangler in 1839 and M.A. in 1842. He was chosen first Smith prizeman in 1839, beating the senior wrangler, Benjamin Morgan Cowie, his fellow-collegian, and he was elected to a fellowship at St. John's College on 19 March. In 1841 he was ordained deacon, and in the same year vacated his fellowship by marriage. He held a mathematical lectureship in Jesus College from 1847 to 1859, and in King's College from 1859 to 1889; but his chief work consisted in the tuition of private pupils, among whom were John Rigby, William Kingdon Clifford, and Joseph Wolstenholme. He was a man of wide interests and varied attainments, an accomplished pianoforte player, and a successful painter in water-colours. On 2 June 1841 he was married at Finchley to Jennett Louisa, daughter of Richard Dixon of Oak Lodge, Finchley. In 1854, Frost edited the first three sections of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton. New editions were published in 1863, 1878, and 1883. In 1863 he prepared, in conjunction with Joseph Wolstenholme, A Treatise on Solid Geometry, of which second and third editions, by Frost alone, appeared in 1875 and 1886. Hints for the Solution of Problems in the Third Edition of Solid Geometry was published in 1887. His third work, An Elementary Treatise on Curve Tracing, appeared in 1872. On 7 June 1883, Frost was admitted as a fellow of the Royal Society, and in the same year he was elected by King's College, Cambridge, to a fellowship, which he retained until his death. In 1883 Frost proceeded to the recently established degree of Doctor of Science. Frost died at Cambridge on 5 June 1898, at his house in Fitzwilliam Street, and was buried on 10 June in the Mill Road cemetery, Cambridge. Besides the works already mentioned, Frost was the author of numerous papers in the Cambridge Mathematical Journal, the Oxford and Cambridge Journal of Mathematics, and the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics.

Works 1854: Newton's Principia, sections I, II, III with Notes and Illustrations and a Collection of Problems, link from Internet Archive. 1863: (with Joseph Wolstenholme) A Treatise on Solid Geometry, link from Hathitrust 1872: An Elementary Treatise on Curve Tracing, link from HathiTrust.

References

Halsted, George Bruce (1899). "Dr. Percival Frost". The American Mathematical Monthly. 6 (8–9): 189–191. doi:10.1080/00029890.1899.11999900. ISSN 0002-9890. Sydney Lee (editor) (1901) Supplement to Dictionary of National Biography, volume 2, see Percival Frost. Editor (December 1898) "Percival Frost", The Eagle. Victor Plarr (1895) Men and Women of the Time: a dictionary of contemporaries.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Percival Frost

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Percival Frost claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Percival Frost before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Percival Frost ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Percival Frost

In research: Percival Frost appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Percival Frost in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Percival Frost is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1817 births, 1898 deaths, 19th-century English mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Percival Frost outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Percival Frost in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Percival Frost means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Percival Frost out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Percival Frost in simple terms?

Percival Frost (1817–1898), was an English mathematician. Life Percival Frost was born at Kingston upon Hull on 1 September 1817, the second son of Charles Frost.

Why does Percival Frost matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Percival Frost?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Percival Frost.