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LARA CROFT'S
QUATERNION HERITAGE
Copyright 2013 www.tombraiderchronicles.com
[ October 10 2013 ]
A walk
along the Royal Canal is planned next week to
mark the day in 1843 when Irish mathematician
William Rowan Hamilton created the Quaternion
- an advanced mathematical concept - while strolling
from the Dunsink Observatory to Dublin with his
wife on 16th October, the Irish Times reports
today.
During
the eighteen hundreds, considerable thought was
concentrated on the amalgamation of complex numbers
and their relationships. Mathematicians questioned
that if a rule for multiplying two numbers existed,
did a similar rule exist for multiplying three.
Hamilton,
one of the greatest mathematicians of all time,
stumbled upon the solution while walking along
the Royal Canal, and carved the answer in the
stone of a bridge to document his formula. Hamilton
had discovered that the solution for the multiplication
of three numbers was "four dimensional." By setting
the forth dimension to zero, Hamilton thus invented
a rule which he called a "proper quaternion."
Quaternions
are used today to design computer games and helped
create the famous character, Lara Croft, star
of the Tomb Raider series. The easy-paced walk
starts at Dunsink and finishes at Broome Bridge.
It is open to the public but you must book by
contacting Fiacre O Cairbre at Maynooth on 01-7083763.
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