Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds your stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get ou… - William Rowan Hamilton
" "Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds your stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out depends upon what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat flour from peascods, so pages of formulæ will not get a definite result out of loose data.
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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
Prometheus: ...
List rather to the deeds
I did for mortals; how being fools before,
I made them wise and true in aim of soul. ...
But teaching you the intention of my gifts,
How first beholding, they beheld in vain,
And hearing, heard not, but, like shapes in dreams,
Mixed all things wildly down the tedious time,
Nor knew to build a house against the sun...
But lived like silly ants, beneath the ground
In hollow caves unsunned. There, came to them
No steadfast sign of winter, nor of spring...
But blindly and lawlessly they did all things,
Until I taught them how the stars do rise
And set in mystery, and devised for them
Number, the inducer of philosophies,
The synthesis of Letters, and, beside,
The artificer of all things, Memory,
That sweet Muse-mother.
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With a view to summon myself to the search for a science of mathematics in general, I asked myself... what precisely was the meaning of this word mathematics, and why arithmetic and geometry only, and not also astronomy, music, optics, mechanics, and so many other sciences, should be considered as forming a part of it; for it is not enough here to know the etymology of the word. In reality the word mathematics meaning nothing but science, those which I have just named have as much right as geometry to be called mathematics; and nevertheless there is no one, however little instructed, who cannot distinguish at once what belongs to mathematics... from what belongs to the other sciences. But... all the sciences which have for their end investigations concerning order and measure, are related to mathematics, it being of small importance whether this measure be sought in numbers, forms, stars, sounds, or any other object; that, accordingly, there ought to exist a general science which should explain all that can be known about order and measure, considered independently of any application to a particular subject, and that, indeed, this science has its own proper name, consecrated by long usage, to wit, mathematics...
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