Mathematics is the study of analogies between analogies. All science is. Scientists want to show that things that don't look alike are really the sam… - William Rowan Hamilton

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Mathematics is the study of analogies between analogies. All science is. Scientists want to show that things that don't look alike are really the same. That is one of their innermost Freudian motivations. In fact, that is what we mean by understanding.

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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 Hamilton Mathematics Institute Hamilton

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Additional quotes by William Rowan Hamilton

If you are interested in the ultimate character of the physical world, or the complete world, and at the present time our only way to understand that is through the mathematical type of reasoning... the great depth of character of the universality of the laws, the relationships of things... I don't know any other way to do it, we don't know any other way to describe it accurately... or to see the interrelationships without it... don't misunderstand me, there are many, many aspects of the world that mathematics is unnecessary for... but we were talking about physics... to not know mathematics is a severe limitation in understanding the world.

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The idea that theorems follow from the postulates does not correspond to simple observation. If the Pythagorean theorem were found to not follow from the postulates, we would again search for a way to alter the postulates until it was true. Euclid's postulates came from the Pythagorean theorem, not the other way around.

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