Quaternions
Cuaterniones
- Date
- 16 de octubre de 1843 · confidence high
- Place
- Dublin (Broom Bridge), Ireland
- Credited to
- William Rowan Hamilton
- People
- 👤 William Rowan Hamilton1805–1865
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
A four-dimensional number system with a non-commutative product (i^2 = j^2 = k^2 = ijk = -1), the first algebra to abandon commutativity. It models rotations of three-dimensional space.
Hamilton carved the formula into the stone of Broom Bridge; Graves and Cayley found the octonions months later.
What it led to
- the vector analysis of Gibbs and Heaviside
- non-commutative algebras
- Clifford algebras and spinors
- Pauli matrices
Built on
- complex numbers as pairs (Hamilton, 1835)
- Argand
Made possible
- Octonionsdiciembre de 1843
- computer graphics and video games (rotations)
- attitude control of spacecraft and drones