It was mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence, wherein the mind appears to play only with itself, that turned out to be the science of… - William Rowan Hamilton
" "It was mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence, wherein the mind appears to play only with itself, that turned out to be the science of sciences, delivering the key to those laws of nature and the universe that are concealed by appearances.
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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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Additional quotes by William Rowan Hamilton
What exactly is mathematics? Many have tried but nobody has really succeeded in defining mathematics; it is always something else. ...[P]eople know that it deals with numbers and figures, with patterns, relations, operations, and that its formal procedures involving axioms, proofs, lemmas, theorems have not changed since the time of Archimedes. ... that it purports to form the foundations of all rational thought. ...The aesthetic side of mathematics has been of overwhelming importance throughout its growth. It is not so much whether a theorem is useful that matters, but how elegant it is. ...One can ...look conversely at ...the homely side of mathematics ...having to be punctilious ...having to make sure of every step. ...[O]ne cannot stop at drawing with a big, wide brush; all the details have to be filled in ...Mathematicians ...fool themselves ...when they think their main business is to prove theorems without at least indicating why they may be important. If left entirely to the aesthetic criteria, doesn't it compound the mystery? ...[I]n the decades to come there will be more understanding ...of the degree of beauty, though ...the criteria may have shifted ...[to] a super beauty in unanalyzable higher levels. ...It has to appeal to connections with other theories of the external world or to the history of the development of the human brain, or else it is purely aesthetic and very subjective in the sense that music is. ...[E]ven the quality of music will be analyzable ...by mathematizing the idea of analogy.
The progress of mathematics has been most erratic, and... intuition has played a predominant rôle in it. ...It was the function of intuition to create new forms; it was the acknowledged right of logic to accept or reject these new forms, in whose birth it had no part. ...the children had to live, so while waiting for logic to sanctify their existence, they throve and multiplied.
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