Abstract
THE centenary of the discovery of quaternions by Sir William Rowan Hamilton has already been the subject of an article in Nature (152, 553; 1943). The Royal Irish Academy has now published (Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., 50 A, 69; 1945) a record of the celebration in Dublin on November 8, 1943, which was attended by Mr. de Valera and two of his Ministers. Owing to the War, representatives of science from outside Ireland were unable to be present in person, but some of them sent messages or articles. The late Prof. G. D. Birkhoff of Harvard stressed the part that Hamilton's ideas played in the development of mathematics in the United States. Vectorial theory could be regarded as, to a large extent, latent in quaternions, like a fine naelody in a great symphony. Vectors were more useful in classical physics, quaternions in the special theory of relativity, and tensors in gravitational relativity. Mathematicians and theoretical physicists should study all three with their historical development.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Quaternion Centenary Celebration. Nature 156, 361 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/156361b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/156361b0