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Mathematics walks into history

Nature volume 476, page 152 (2011)Cite this article

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Mathematician William Rowan Hamilton did indeed hit on the idea of quaternions — a complex-number system extending into four dimensions — while crossing a Dublin bridge in 1843 (Nature 475, 167; 2011). Yet it was what the Irishman was doing while absorbed in mathematics that gives him the last laugh, for quaternions are used in the clinical and laboratory analysis of bodily motion, notably of gait. So what was Hamilton doing? Walking into history.

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  1. Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

    John Hart

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  1. John Hart
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Correspondence to John Hart.

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Hart, J. Mathematics walks into history. Nature 476, 152 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/476152d

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