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mathematician whose five-volume treatise on the history of determinants
1906-30 made the work of other mathematicians accessible to scholars. Muir was born in Stonebrye, Lanarkshire, and studied at Glasgow and in Germany at Berlin. In 1874 he resigned a position as assistant professor at Glasgow to become head of the Mathematics and Science Department at Glasgow High School. From 1892 he was superintendent-general of education in South Africa and vice chancellor of the University of Cape Town. Although not himself a creative mathematician, Muir published 307 papers, most of them on determinants and allied subjects. His books include A Treatise on the Theory of Determinants 1882 and The Theory of Determinants in its Historical Order of Development 1890. |