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It doesn't matter what mathematical things are: it's what they do that counts. Thus mathematics hovers uneasily between the real and the not-real; it… - William Rowan Hamilton
" "It doesn't matter what mathematical things are: it's what they do that counts. Thus mathematics hovers uneasily between the real and the not-real; its meaning does not reside in formal abstractions, but neither is it tangible. ...it is the great strength of mathematics—what I have elsewhere called its "unreal reality." Mathematics links the abstract world of mental concepts to the real world of physical things without being located in completely in either.
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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
We should not believe... that commensurability is a quality of every magnitude as of all the numbers; and whoever has not investigated this subject, shows a gross and unseemly ignorance of what the Athenian Stranger says in the seventh treatise of the Book of the Laws, [namely], "And besides there is found in every man an ignorance, shameful in its nature and ludicrous, concerning everything which has the dimensions, length, breadth, and depth; and it is clear that mathematics can free them from this ignorance. For I hold that this [ignorance] is a brutish and not a human state, and I am verily ashamed, not for myself only, but for all Greeks, of the opinion of those men who prefer to believe what this whole generation believes, [namely], that commensurability is necessarily a quality of all magnitudes. For everyone of them says: "We conceive that those things are essentially the same, some of which can measure the others in some way or other. But the fact is that only some of them are measured by common measures, whereas others cannot be measured at all".
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