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Sir William Rowan Hamilton

William Hamilton
William Rowan Hamilton portrait oval combined.png
William Rowan Hamilton (1805–1865)
Born (1805-08-04)4 August 1805
Dublin, Ireland
Died 2 September 1865(1865-09-02) (aged 60)
Dublin, Ireland
Residence Ireland
Nationality Irish
Fields Physics, astronomy, and mathematics
Institutions Trinity College, Dublin
Alma mater Trinity College, Dublin
Academic advisors John Brinkley
Known for Hamilton's principle
Hamiltonian mechanics
Hamiltonians
Hamilton–Jacobi equation
Quaternions
Biquaternions
Hamiltonian path
Icosian calculus
Nabla symbol
Versor
Coining the word 'tensor'
Hamiltonian vector field
Icosian game
Universal algebra
Hodograph
Hamiltonian group
Cayley–Hamilton theorem
Influences John T. Graves
Influenced Zerah Colburn
Peter Guthrie Tait
Notable awards Royal Medal (1835)

Sir William Rowan Hamilton PRIA FRSE (4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) was an Irish physicist, astronomer, and mathematician, 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 best known contribution to mathematical physics is the reformulation of Newtonian mechanics, now called Hamiltonian mechanics. This work has proven central to the modern study of classical field theories such as electromagnetism, and to the development of quantum mechanics. In pure mathematics, he is best known as the inventor of quaternions.

Hamilton is said to have shown immense talent at a very early age. Astronomer Bishop Dr. John Brinkley remarked of the 18-year-old Hamilton, 'This young man, I do not say will be, but is, the first mathematician of his age.'

William Rowan Hamilton's scientific career included the study of geometrical optics, classical mechanics, adaptation of dynamic methods in optical systems, applying quaternion and vector methods to problems in mechanics and in geometry, development of theories of conjugate algebraic couple functions (in which complex numbers are constructed as ordered pairs of real numbers), solvability of polynomial equations and general quintic polynomial solvable by radicals, the analysis on Fluctuating Functions (and the ideas from Fourier analysis), linear operators on quaternions and proving a result for linear operators on the space of quaternions (which is a special case of the general theorem which today is known as the Cayley–Hamilton theorem). Hamilton also invented "icosian calculus", which he used to investigate closed edge paths on a dodecahedron that visit each vertex exactly once.


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