’Augustus De Morgan (1806–71) was the founding Professor of Mathematics at the secular London University (now University College London), and the first President of the London Mathematical Society. ‘For roughly thirty years, De Morgan also produced a huge number of articles and reviews for the weekly journal The Athenaeum. These resulted in what is perhaps his best-known work, derived from a regular column entitled ‘A Budget of Paradoxes’, in which he presented a host of mathematical and scientific oddities and anecdotes. These were eventually collected and published as a single volume in 1872. The ‘Budget’ displays the humorous and eccentric side of De Morgan’s character, including (by way of a comment on the philosophical question of the plurality of worlds) a charming parody of a verse by Swift: “Great fleas have little fleas, upon their backs to bite ’em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum”’ (Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophers, Bristol, Thoemmes Press, 2002).
