William Rowan Hamilton, Irish Mathematician

Illustration depicting William Rowan Hamilton (August 4, 1805 - September 2, 1865) was an Irish mathematician, astronomer and physicist who made important contributions to classical mechanics, optics, and algebra. His studies of mechanical and optical systems led him to discover new mathematical concepts and techniques. His reformulation of Newtonian mechanics, now called Hamiltonian mechanics, has proven central to the modern study of classical field theories such as electromagnetism, and to the development of quantum mechanics. In mathematics, he invented icosian calculus and was the first to discovery quaternions, a number system that extends complex numbers and are applied to mechanics in three-dimensional space. Hamilton's Elements of Quaternions was published after his death in 1865 after a severe attack of gout. This image has been color enhanced

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13343570

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47780675

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2972px x 2447px (1.5MB)

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Photo Researchers, Inc