A collection of papers in memory of Sir William Rowan Hamilton: The Scripta Mathematica Studies, Number Two. 82 pages, 17 × 25 cms. New York, Scripta mathematica, 1945. Price $1.50
✍ Scribed by George E. Pettengill
- Book ID
- 103080069
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1946
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 68 KB
- Volume
- 241
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0016-0032
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The year 1943 marked the one hundredth anniversary of the discovery of quaternions by Sir William Rown Hamilton. Unfortunately the war prohibited fitting celebration at the time, so this volume has been prepared in his honor.
J. L. Synge discusses the life and early work of Hamilton emphasing his other great idea-the principal or characteristic function. Algebra's debt to Hamilton forms the subject of C. C. MacDuffee's paper. He points out that the presentation of the complex number field as a theory of couples of real numbers was a more fundamental concept in algebra than the spectacular quaternion. An elementary explanation of the theory of quaternions is offered by F. D. Murnaghan.
In the field of dynamics Hamilton also made important contributions. A summary of his work in this field and its subsequent influence on modern thought is presented by H. Bateman.