(1805-1865)
William Rowan Hamilton was born in Dublin
in 1805 he was educated by his uncle in Trim, Co Meath. He showed
great promise as a mathematician from an early age. He could read
and do maths at the age of three, was studying Greek, Latin and
hebrew at the age of five, at the age of thirteen he had a good
knowledge of thirteen languages, at fourteen he wrote a welcome
in Persian for a visit of the Persian ambassador to Dublin.
At the age of 22 and still and undergraduate
he was appointed professor of astronomy at Trinity College Dublin
and soon after Astronomer Royal of Ireland, It is his theory of
quantum mechanics for which he is famous, the full importance of
his formula is only now becoming appreciated with its application
in the new technology's of computer's graphics, the Internet and
space .
His Eureka moment is celebrated each year
in Dublin when he famously wrote out his theory on the arch of a
bridge, after it came to him on the way to a party with his wife.
He was also a noted linguist and poet. He died in 1865. |
