Content deleted Content added
Reverted 1 edit by 73.234.189.9 (talk): Young William may have addressed him as "Uncle James", but in this context it's just a common noun. |
|||
| (19 intermediate revisions by 11 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{Short description|Irish mathematician and astronomer (1805–1865)}}
{{Use British English|date=
{{Use dmy dates|date=
{{Infobox scientist
| honorific_prefix = [[Sir]]
| name = Sir William Rowan Hamilton▼
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FRAS}}
| image = William Rowan Hamilton portrait oval combined.png
|
| birth_place = [[Dublin]], Ireland
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=
| death_place =
| nationality = Irish▼
| fields = [[Mathematics]], [[astronomy]], [[physics]]▼
| alma_mater = [[Trinity College Dublin]]
| spouse = {{marriage|Helen Marie Bayly|1833}}
| known_for = {{collapsible list|title={{nobold|''See list''}}|{{ubl|[[Hamilton's principle]]
| awards = {{ubl|[[Cunningham Medal]] (1834, 1848)|[[Royal Medal]] (1835)|[[Knight|Knighthood]] (1835)}}
| work_institutions = Trinity College Dublin<br>[[Dunsink Observatory]]
| academic_advisors = [[John Brinkley (astronomer)|John Brinkley]]
| module = {{Infobox officeholder
| office = Andrews Professor of Astronomy
▲| known_for = [[Hamilton's principle]]<br />[[Hamiltonian mechanics]]<br />[[Hamiltonian (quantum mechanics)|Hamiltonians]]<br />[[Hamilton–Jacobi equation]]<br />[[Quaternion]]s<br />[[Biquaternion]]s<br />[[Hamiltonian path]]<br />[[Icosian calculus]]<br />[[Nabla symbol]]<br />[[Versor]]<br />[[Tensor|Coining the word 'tensor']]<br />[[Tensor|Coining the word 'scalar']]<br />[[cis (mathematics)|cis notation]]<br />[[Hamiltonian vector field]]<br />[[Icosian game]]<br />[[Universal algebra]]<br />[[Hodograph]]<br />[[Hamiltonian group]]<br />[[Cayley–Hamilton theorem]]
| order = 3rd
|
|
| predecessor = [[John Brinkley (astronomer)|John Brinkley]]
| successor = [[Franz Brünnow]]
}}
}}
'''Sir William Rowan Hamilton'''
Hamilton was Dunsink's third director, having worked there from 1827 to 1865. His career included the study of [[geometrical optics]], [[Fourier analysis]], and [[quaternions]], the last of which made him one of the founders of modern [[linear algebra]].<ref name="ODNB"/> He has made major contributions in optics, [[classical mechanics]], and [[abstract algebra]]. His work
==Early life==
Line 37 ⟶ 39:
An expert [[Mental calculation|mental calculator]], the young Hamilton was capable of working out some calculations to many decimal places. In September 1813, the American calculating [[Child prodigy|prodigy]] [[Zerah Colburn (mental calculator)|Zerah Colburn]] was being exhibited in Dublin. Colburn was 9, a year older than Hamilton. The two were pitted against each other in a mental arithmetic contest, with Colburn emerging as the clear victor.<ref name="Bruno2003"/>{{rp|208}}
In reaction to his defeat, Hamilton spent less time studying languages, and more on mathematics.
==Student years==
In mid-1822, Hamilton began a systematic study of [[Laplace]]'s ''[[Traité de mécanique céleste|Mécanique Céleste]]''. During this period, he encountered what he believed to be a logical error in ''Mécanique Céleste'', an observation which led Hamilton to be introduced to [[John Brinkley (astronomer)|John Brinkley]], then Royal Astronomer of Ireland.<ref name="DNB"/> In November and December of 1822, he completed his first three original mathematical papers. On his first visit to Dunsink Observatory, he showed two of them to Brinkley, who requested that the papers be developed further. Hamilton complied, and early in 1823, Brinkley approved the amended version.<ref>Graves (1882) Vol. I, pp. 124, 128</ref> In July of 1823, Hamilton earned a place at [[Trinity College Dublin]] by examination, at age 17. His tutor there was [[Charles Boyton]], a family friend,<ref name="ODNB"/> who brought to his attention the contemporary mathematics published by the group at the [[École Polytechnique]] in Paris.<ref>{{cite web |title=Boyton, Charles, Dictionary of Irish Biography |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/boyton-charles-a0864 |website=www.dib.ie |language=en}}</ref> John Brinkley remarked of the precocious Hamilton, "This young man, I do not say ''will be'', but ''is'', the first mathematician of his age."<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015027525990;view=1up;seq=155 Sir W. R. Hamilton] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190507113324/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015027525990;view=1up;seq=155 |date=7 May 2019 }} The Gentleman's magazine. vol 220, 1866 Jan–Jun, p. 129</ref>
The college awarded Hamilton two
===Personal life and poetry===
Line 67:
Hamilton visited [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] at [[Highgate]], in 1832, helped by an unexpected letter of introduction given to him by Sarah Lawrence on a visit to Liverpool in March of that year. He also paid a call, with Arabella, on the family of [[William Roscoe]], who had died in 1831.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Paley |first1=Morton D. |title=Coleridge's Later Poetry |date=1999 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-818685-4 |page=26 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QBezJcVeU6UC&pg=PA26 |language=en}}</ref><ref>Graves (1882) Vol. I, p. 191</ref>
He was a Christian, described as "a lover of the Bible, an orthodox and attached member of the Established Church", and as having a "profound conviction of the truth of revealed religion".<ref>{{cite magazine |last=De Morgan |first=Augustus |date=1866 |title=Sir W. R. Hamilton |magazine=Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Review |volume=1 |pages=128-134 |quote=In the case of Hamilton there is no occasion to state anything but the simple fact, known to all his intimates, that he was in private profession, as in public, a Christian, a lover of the Bible, an orthodox and attached member of the Established Church, though of the most liberal feelings on all points. He had some disposition towards the life of a clergyman, but preferred to keep himself free to devote all his time to science: he was offered ordination by two bishops.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Pritchard |first=Charles |date=1866 |title=William Rowan Hamilton |journal=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |volume=26 |pages=109-118 |quote=This memoir would be incomplete if we did not add, that our deceased member, together with the character of a scholar, a poet, a metaphysician, and a great analyst, combined with that of a kind-hearted, simple-minded Christian gentleman; we say the latter because Sir William Hamilton was too sincere a man ever to disguise, though too diffident to obtrude, his profound conviction of the truth of revealed religion.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Chase |first=Gene |date=1966 |chapter=Has Christian theology furthered mathematics |title=Facets of Faith and Science: The Role of Beliefs in Mathematics and the Natural Sciences: An Augustinian Perspective |volume=2 |editor-last=van der Meer |editor-first=Jitse M. |publisher=University Press of America; Pascal Centre for Advanced Studies |quote=In Hamilton’s Calvinistic[1] theology, as in that of his Scottish friend and pupil Clerk Maxwell, God is the creator both of the universe and of the laws governing it. This means that the lawful relations among material objects are as real as the objects themselves. As a Christian, Hamilton was convinced that the stamp of God is on nature everywhere. He expected a Triune God to leave evidence of the Trinity on everything from three-dimensional space in geometry to an algebra involving triples of numbers. This “metaphysical drive,” in the words of Thomas Hankins, his best twentieth-century biographer, “held him to the task” of looking for a generalization of complex numbers to triples.”}}</ref>
== Family==
Line 72 ⟶ 74:
==Death==
Hamilton retained his faculties unimpaired to the last, and continued the task of finishing the ''Elements of Quaternions'' which had occupied the last six years of his life. He died on 2 September 1865, following a severe attack of [[gout]].
==Physics==
{{Classical mechanics|Topic=Scientists}}
Hamilton made outstanding
His first discovery was in an early paper that he communicated in 1823 to John Brinkley, who presented it under the title of ''Caustics'' in 1824 to the [[Royal Irish Academy]]. It was referred as usual to a committee, which recommended further development and simplification before publication. Between 1825 and 1828 the paper was expanded, and became a clearer exposition of a novel method.<ref name="EB1911" /> Over this period, Hamilton gained an appreciation for the nature and importance of optics.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=2018|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350971424|journal=The BK Bounce|doi=10.5040/9781350971424|title=The BK Bounce|access-date=2 May 2021|archive-date=26 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926202747/https://www.humankineticslibrary.com/video?docid=HKL_5687412356001&tocid=HKL_file_5687412356001|url-status=live }}</ref>
Line 90 ⟶ 92:
===Context and importance of the work===
[[Hamiltonian mechanics]] was a powerful new technique for working with [[equations of motion]]. Hamilton's advances enlarged the class of mechanical problems that could be solved. His principle of "Varying Action" was based on the [[calculus of variations]], in the general class of problems included under the [[principle of least action]] which had been studied earlier by [[Maupertuis|Pierre Louis Maupertuis]], [[Euler]], [[Joseph Louis Lagrange]] and others. Hamilton's analysis uncovered a deeper mathematical structure than had been previously understood, in particular a symmetry between momentum and position. The credit for discovering what are now called the [[Lagrangian (field theory)|Lagrangian]] and [[Lagrange's equations]]
Both the [[Lagrangian mechanics]] and Hamiltonian approaches have proven important in the study of continuous classical systems in physics, and quantum mechanical systems: the techniques find use in [[electromagnetism]], [[quantum mechanics]], [[relativity theory]] and [[quantum field theory]]. In the ''[[Dictionary of Irish Biography]]'' [[David Spearman]] writes:<ref>[https://dib.cambridge.org/home.do Dictionary of Irish Biography: Hamilton, William Rowan] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190406170328/https://dib.cambridge.org/home.do |date=6 April 2019 }} [[Cambridge University Press]]</ref>
Line 141 ⟶ 143:
National University of Ireland, Maynooth (2005), Irish Math. Soc. Bulletin 65 (2010)</ref>
The [[Hamilton Institute]] is an applied mathematics research institute at [[Maynooth University]] and the [[Royal Irish Academy]] holds an annual public Hamilton lecture at which [[Murray Gell-Mann]], [[Frank Wilczek]], [[Andrew Wiles]] and [[Timothy Gowers]] have all spoken.
Two [[commemorative stamp]]s were issued by Ireland in 1943 to mark the centenary of the announcement of quaternions.<ref name=Colnect.com>{{cite web|title=William Rowan Hamilton|url=https://colnect.com/en/stamps/list/country/2616-Ireland/series/10231-William_Rowan_Hamilton/theme/23-Sculptures/year/1943|website=colnect.com|access-date=8 October 2018}}</ref> A 10-[[euro]] commemorative silver [[proof coin]] was issued by the [[Central Bank of Ireland]] in 2005 to commemorate 200 years since his birth.
Line 176 ⟶ 178:
* {{cite book |last1=Barker |first1=Juliet R. V. |title=Wordsworth: A Life |date=2001 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-14-026162-2 |page=411 |language=en}}
* {{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/mathmathematicia00brun|url-access=registration|title=Math and mathematicians: the history of math discoveries around the world|last=Bruno|first=Leonard C.|date=2003|orig-year=1999|publisher=U X L|others=Baker, Lawrence W.|isbn=0787638137|location=Detroit, Mich.|page=|oclc=41497065}}
* Chow, Tai L. (2013). ''[https://www.crcpress.com/Classical-Mechanics/Chow/p/book/9781466569980 Classical Mechanics: Chaper 5: Hamilton Formulation of Mechanics: Description of Motion in Phase Spaces]''. CRC Press, {{ISBN|978-1466569980}}
| |||