## Posts Tagged 'Hamilton'

### Maths and Poetry: Beauty is the Link

Mathematicians are not renowned for their ability to reach the deepest recesses of the human soul. This talent is usually associated with great artists and musicians, and a good poet can move us profoundly with a few well-chosen words [TM173 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

Irish postage stamp issued in 2005, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of William Rowan Hamilton.

### Symplectic Geometry

For many decades, a search has been under way to find a theory of everything, that accounts for all the fundamental physical forces, including gravity. The dictum “physics is geometry” is a guiding principle of modern theoretical physics. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which emerged just one hundred years ago, is a crowning example of this synergy. He showed how matter distorts the geometry of space and this geometry determines the motion of matter. The central idea is encapsulated in an epigram of John A Wheeler:

$\displaystyle \mbox{Matter tells space how to curve. Space tells matter how to move.}$

### Kepler’s Vanishing Circles Hidden in Hamilton’s Hodograph

The Greeks regarded the heavens as the epitome of perfection. All flaws and blemishes were confined to the terrestrial domain. Since the circle is perfect in its infinite symmetry, it was concluded by Aristotle that the Sun and planets move in circles around the Earth. Later, the astronomer Ptolemy accounted for deviations by means of additional circles, or epicycles. He stuck with the circular model [TM162 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

Left: Elliptic orbit with velocity vectors. Right: Hodograph, with all velocity vectors plotted from a single point.

### The Many Modern Uses of Quaternions

The story of William Rowan Hamilton’s discovery of new four-dimensional numbers called quaternions is familiar. The solution of a problem that had bothered him for years occurred to him in a flash of insight as he walked along the Royal Canal in Dublin. But this Eureka moment did not arise spontaneously: it was the result of years of intense effort. The great French mathematician Henri Poincaré also described how sudden inspiration occurs unexpectedly, but always following a period of concentrated research [TM148, or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

### The next Hamilton

William Rowan Hamilton was Ireland’s greatest mathematician. His name is heard thousands of times every day throughout the world when researchers use the Hamiltonian function that encapsulates the dynamics of a vast range of physical systems. He achieved fame early in life and remains one of the all-time great scientists. [TM099, or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

### Old Octonions may rule the World

This week’s That’s Maths column in The Irish Times (TM055, or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com) is about octonions, new numbers discovered by John T Graves, a friend of William Rowan Hamilton.

Multiplication table for octonions, of the form z=a+bi+cj+dk+eE+fI+gJ+hK [Source: http://jmc2008.wurzel.org/index.php/Main/Logo]

Continue reading ‘Old Octonions may rule the World’

### Robots & Biology

The article in this week’s That’s Maths column in the Irish Times ( TM037 ) is about connections between robotics and biological systems via mechanics.

The application of mathematics in biology is a flourishing research field. Most living organisms are far too complex to be modelled in their entirety, but great progress is under way in simulating individual organs and modelling specific functions such as blood-flow and locomotion.