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Noted elsewhere: William Rowan Hamilton and the Poetry of Science.

By MARCUS TOMALIN [RaVoN] – ‘To summarise (all too briefly) just a few aspects of Hamilton’s scientific work, the method of general dynamics that he devised in the 1830s introduced the operator (later called the ‘Hamiltonian’ operator) which eventually provided a key analytical tool for Quantum Mechanics; his sketch of an algebra founded upon the notion of pure time largely anticipated Brouwerian Intuitionism; and his theory of Quarternions, which contributed to the development of non-commutative algebras in his own day, has recently begun to find extensive practical applications. However, despite sustaining an illustrious career as a professional physicist and mathematician, Hamilton repeatedly claimed that he was primarily a poet rather than a scientist.’ (Continued at RaVoN | Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net via Érudit)

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