no.8 William Rowan Hamilton
Proposed by historian Pat Liddy
“We were asked to pick the greatest Dubliner of all time, not the most famous. The things that William Rowan Hamilton has done for us very solidly put him into the bracket of the greatest.
He was very patriotic in the presentation of his own work. He knew that, in the early-1800s, the Irish were being lampooned, especially by our friends across the water, as being lazy, drunken no-gooders who lacked perseverance. He set out to become essentially the Einstein of Ireland – the Einstein of the world, before Einstein.
By the age of 13, he spoke 13 different languages including Persian, Sanskrit and Arabic. He was invited to Trinity because he had found a mistake in a very complex and important mathematical equation. Within a couple of years, he was made professor of astronomy and director of Dunsink Observatory – all while he was still an undergraduate.
At the young age of 32, he became president of the Royal Irish Academy. He was the first person outside America to be elected to the National Academy of Science in the US. Hamilton’s contributions in dynamics led to the later development of quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics today, there is a term used all over the world called the Hamiltonian function.
In optics, his research using crystals produced what would become wave theories. Today computer graphics, animated films and 3-D all are enabled by his form of algebra. There is even a crater on the moon named after him.
In 1843 he was walking around the Royal Canal and had a eureka moment. He wrote down his famous
quaternion formula in his little notebook but he was afraid that he’d lose it, so he scratched it on the stonework of the Broom bridge. That bridge today is a Mecca for scientists from all over the world. I was there myself when two Japanese physicists arrived – they were practically licking the bridge.
Hamilton was a remarkable man. His work is fundamental to our modern world and we would have been a poorer place without him.”
Several readers proposed Pat Liddy as the Greatest Dubliner of all time
practically licking the bridge!
Posted by: darla | March 27, 2009 at 14:06