Abstract
FOR many years Hamilton's “Lectures” and “Elements” have been out of print, and the ardent student of quaternions was oftentimes unable to secure a copy of either of these great classics. Prof. Tait's treatise on quaternions is probably a better introduction for the beginner, who is more quickly brought into touch with the essential spirit of the method than he would be in Hamilton's pages. But he must, some time or other—unless he be a second Hamilton—bathe his mathematical being in the inexhaustible streams of quaternion analysis and symbolism that flow from the great master's mind. A second edition of Hamilton's immortal work is therefore to be warmly welcomed. English-speaking students will now be able to study Hamilton freely without having recourse to French or German translations; and it is our hope that the issue of this second edition will lead to a wider appreciation of the value of quaternions as a mathematical method peculiarly adapted to the geometry of space and general problems in dynamics.
Elements of Quaternions.
Sir W. R. Hamilton. Second edition. Vol. I. Edited by C. J. Joly. Pp. xxxiii + 583. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899.)
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K., C. Elements of Quaternions. Nature 60, 387 (1899). https://doi.org/10.1038/060387a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/060387a0