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William Rowan Hamilton

Also known as Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Hamilton Mathematics Institute, Hamilton

Irish mathematician and astronomer (1805-1865)

AI overview

William Rowan Hamilton was an Irish mathematician and astronomer who lived from 1805 to 1865 and made important contributions to his fields during the 19th century. His work laid groundwork in areas like algebra and mechanics that influenced the development of mathematics and physics.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born: 1805
Died: 1865
Works: 18

Top works

The mathematical papers of Sir William Rowan Hamilton
Lectures on quaternions
Elements of quaternions
The Mathematical Papers of Sir William Rowan Hamilton
Letter from Sir William Rowan Hamilton

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Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Male
Origin: United States
Active from: 1942-07-04

bluegrasscountrycountry folkcountry rockfolkprogressive bluegrass

Discography

Official site Discogs Stream

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Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

VMD: Visual molecular dynamics
· 1996 · cited 62,963x
Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure
· 1976 · cited 44,835x
Colorimetric Method for Determination of Sugars and Related Substances
· 1956 · cited 42,303x
Comparison of simple potential functions for simulating liquid water
· 1983 · cited 39,556x
QIIME allows analysis of high-throughput community sequencing data
· 2010 · cited 30,947x

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Quotes

“The Study of Algebra may be pursued in three very different schools, the Practical, the Philological, or the Theoretical, according as Algebra itself is accounted an Instrument, or a Language, or a Contemplation; according as ease of operation, or symmetry of expression, or clearness of thought, (the agere, the fari, or the sapere,) is eminently prized and sought for.”
“To admire is, to me, questionless, the highest pleasure of life.”
“Time is said to have only one dimension, and space to have three dimensions. ... The mathematical quaternion partakes of both these elements; in technical language it may be said to be 'time plus space', or 'space plus time': and in this sense it has, or at least involves a reference to, four dimensions. And how the One of Time, of Space the Three, Might in the Chain of Symbols girdled be.”

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Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Family name: Hamilton
Gender: male
Citizenship: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Place of birth: Dublin
Place of death: Dublin
Occupation: theoretical physicist
Position held: Royal Astronomer of Ireland
Educated at: Westminster School
Employer: Dunsink Observatory
Languages spoken: English language
Religion: Anglicanism
Notable work: Hamiltonian path
Student of: John Brinkley
Field of work: quaternion
Image: William Rowan Hamilton painting.jpg
Number of children: 3

Show 13 more facts

Commons category: William Rowan Hamilton
member of: Russian Academy of Sciences
date of birth: 1805-08-04
date of death: 1865-09-02
topic's main category: Category:William Rowan Hamilton
name in native language: William Rowan Hamilton
place of burial: Mount Jerome Cemetery
influenced by: Zerah Colburn
honorific prefix: Sir
on focus list of Wikimedia project: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
writing language: English language
maintained by WikiProject: WikiProject Mathematics
P8168: A Fratricide

Sources (4)

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~22 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Sir William Rowan Hamilton (4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) was an Irish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer who made numerous major contributions to algebra, classical mechanics, and optics. His theoretical works and mathematical equations are considered fundamental to modern theoretical physics, particularly his reformulation of Lagrangian mechanics. His research included the analysis of geometrical optics, Fourier analysis, and quaternions, the last of which made him one of the founders of modern linear algebra.

Hamilton was Andrews Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College Dublin. He was also the third director of Dunsink Observatory from 1827 to 1865. The Hamilton Institute at Maynooth University is named after him.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “William Rowan Hamilton” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.