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Physicists have been drawn to elegant mathematical relationships that bind the subject together with economy and style, melding disparate qualities i… - William Rowan Hamilton
" "Physicists have been drawn to elegant mathematical relationships that bind the subject together with economy and style, melding disparate qualities in subtle and harmonious ways. But this is to import a new factor into the argument—questions of aesthetics and taste. We are then on shaky ground indeed. It may be that M theory looks beautiful to its creators, but ugly to N theorists, who think that their theory is the most elegant. But then the O theorists disagree with both groups...
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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
If a mathematician wishes to disparage the work of one of his colleagues, say, A, the most effective method he finds for doing this is to ask where the results can be applied. The hard pressed man, with his back against the wall, finally unearths the researches of another mathematician B as the locus of the application of his own results. If next B is plagued with a similar question, he will refer to another mathematician C. After a few steps of this kind we find ourselves referred back to the researches of A, and in this way the chain closes.
There is probably no other science which presents such different appearances to one who cultivates and one who does not, as mathematics. To [the non-mathematician] it is ancient, venerable, and complete; a body of dry, irrefutable, unambiguous reasoning. To the mathematician, on the other hand, his science is yet in the purple of bloom of vigorous youth, everywhere stretching out after the "attainable but unattained," and full of the excitement of nascent thoughts; its logic is beset with ambiguities, and its analytic processes, like Bunyan's road, have a quagmire on one side and a deep ditch on the other, and branch off into innumerable by-paths that end in a wilderness.
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