Hamilton Walk

Hamilton Walk

Anekdoten forteller at den irske matematiker William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) plutselig fikk ideen om kvaternioner mens han gikk langs Royal Canal på sin veg fra sin bolig i Dunsirk Observatory til the Royal Irish Academy i Dublin.

Han hadde lenge syslet med utvidelse av kompleks algebra til tre dimensjoner.

Datoen var 16. oktober 1843 og han nærmet seg Brougham Bridge da løsningen brått slo ham:

i² = j² = k² = ijk = -1

I sin iver risset han formelen inn i en av brostenene med kniv. Innrisset er senere tæret bort, men er erstattet av en plakett med teksten:

Here as he walked by

on the 16th of October 1843

Sir William Rowan Hamilton

in a flash of genius discovered

the fundamental formula for

quaternion multiplication

i² = j² = k² = ijk = −1

& cut it on a stone of this bridge.

Hendelsen minnes fortsatt med en årlig "Hamilton Walk" 

Hamilton beskrev hendelsen i et brev til sin sønn, datert October 16, 1843:

"… an undercurrent of thought was going on in my mind which gave at last a result, whereof it is not too much to say that I felt at once the importance. An electric circuit seemed to close; and a spark flashed forth the herald (as I foresaw immediately) of many long years to come of definitely directed thought and work by myself, if spared, and, at all events, on the part of others if I should even be allowed to live long enough distinctly to communicate the discovery. Nor could I resist the impulse - unphilosophical as it may have been - to cut with a knife on a stone of Brougham Bridge, as we passed it, the fundamental formula which contains the Solution of the Problem, but, of course, the inscription has long since mouldered away."

Denne anekdoten støtter min mosjonshypotese, og den illustrerer også at manglende mosjon kan være en medvirkende årsak til vitenskapens tanketørke…

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Noen lenker:

Brougham Bridge, John Baez' blog, 2004

The Irish man who discovered quaternion algebra, Irish Times, 2016-10-26

Broom Bridge, Wikipedia, 

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