Kavita bhartia biography of william hamilton

He made important contributions to classical mechanics , optics , and algebra , but is perhaps best known as the inventor of quaternions , a number system that extends the complex numbers. John Brinkley about year-old Hamilton. William Hamilton was born as fourth of nine children of Archibald Hamilton, a solicitor originally from Duneboyne, and Sarah Hutton in Dublin.

His father did not have time to teach William as he was often away in England pursuing legal business. At a young age, Hamilton displayed an uncanny ability to acquire languages. At age 13, he had already acquired 13 languages, among them the classical and modern European languages, but also Persian, Arabic , Hindustani , Sanskrit , and even Marathi and Malay.

Each is the relative and correlative of the other. Already two years later, he was studying the works of Newton and Laplace. Hamilton was part of a small but well-regarded school of mathematicians associated with Trinity College, Dublin, which he entered at age He studied both classics and mathematics, and was appointed Professor of Astronomy in , prior to his graduation taking up residence at Dunsink Observatory where he spent the rest of his life.

Hamish Hamilton. Drama. 4.

The theory brought together mechanics, optics and mathematics, thus helping establish the wave theory of light. According to this theory, a single ray of light entering a biaxial crystal at a certain angle emerged as a hollow cone of rays. Hamilton had a deep interest in the fundamental principles of algebra. While the principle is based on the calculus of variation, it, however, revealed a detailed mathematical structure than that had been previously understood.

As such, the techniques are still in use in electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, quantum relativity theory, and quantum field theory [2].