There is no mathematical substitute for philosophy. - William Rowan Hamilton

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There is no mathematical substitute for philosophy.

William Rowan Hamilton

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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.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Sir William Rowan Hamilton • Hamilton Mathematics Institute • Hamilton

All quotes from William Rowan Hamilton Similar Quotes by other Originators

Originators like William Rowan Hamilton:

Carl Friedrich Gauss Isaac Barrow Hermann Weyl John Wallis James Clerk Maxwell

Additional quotes by William Rowan Hamilton

There is a familiar formula—perhaps the most compact and famous of all formulas—developed by Euler from a discovery of De Moivre: e<sup>iπ</sup> + 1 = 0. ...It appeals equally to the mystic, the scientist, the philosopher, the mathematician.

Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and daemons.

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.