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It is but right... to apprise you that, diffident of my own decision, the favorable opinion I favor of your performance is founded rather on the expl… - William Rowan Hamilton
" "It is but right... to apprise you that, diffident of my own decision, the favorable opinion I favor of your performance is founded rather on the explicit and ample testimonies of Gentlemen confessedly possessed of great mathematical knowledge, than on the partial and incompetent attention I have been able to pay to it myself.—But I must be permitted to remark that the subject, in my estimation, holds a higher rank in the literary scale than you are disposed to allow.—The science of figures, to a certain degree, is not only indispensably requisite in every walk of civilised life; but investigation of mathematical truths accustoms the mind to method and correctness in reasoning, and is an employment peculiarly worthy of rational beings. In a clouded state of existence, where so many things appear precarious to the bewildered research, it is here that the rational faculties find a firm foundation to rest upon. From the high ground of mathematical and philosophical demonstration, we are insensibly led to far nobler speculations and sublimer meditations.
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About William Rowan Hamilton
Sir William Rowan Hamilton (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 greatest contribution is perhaps 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 mathematics, he is perhaps best known for his discovery of quaternions.
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Alternative Names:
Sir William Rowan Hamilton
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Hamilton Mathematics Institute
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Hamilton
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Clearly, if electric action is to be explained in mechanical terms, the mechanism must be supposed to be attached to the electric charges, and to move through space with them. It must extend through the whole of space, because the attraction and repulsion of an electron extend through the whole of space, and it must be the same for all directions in space. Further, as the pattern of events is unaltered by motion, the mechanism must be the same when the electron is in motion as when it is at rest. But experiment shows that an electron in motion exerts additional forces which are not the same for all directions in space; if we picture this electron as moving head-foremost through space, these forces surround it like a belt around its waist.
Thus direct experimental evidence shows that the forces exerted by an electron (or... any charged body) can neither be attributed to any mechanism attached to the body, nor through action transmitted through an ether or any medium surrounding the body. We have a perfect specification of the pattern of events written... in the language of mathematics, but this does not admit of interpretation in mechanical terms, or indeed in any terms other than those of mathematics.
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