Comparatively few engineers are good mathematicians; and... it is fortunate that such is the case; for nature rarely combines high mathematical talen… - William Rowan Hamilton

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Comparatively few engineers are good mathematicians; and... it is fortunate that such is the case; for nature rarely combines high mathematical talent, with that practical tact, and observation of outward things, so essential to a successful engineer.
There have been... brilliant exceptions; but they are very rare. But few even of those who have been tolerable mathematicians when young, can, as they advance in years, and become engaged in business, spare the time necessary for retaining such accomplishments.

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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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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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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.

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