The Hamilton Walk from
Dunsink Observatory
The Dunsink Observatory is an astronomical observatory established in 1785 in the townland of Dunsink in the outskirts of the city of Dublin, Ireland.Alexander Thom''Irish Almanac and Official Directory''7th ed., 1850 p. 258. Retrieved: 2011 ...
to Broom Bridge on the Royal Canal in Dublin takes place on 16 October each year. This is the anniversary of the day in 1843 when
William Rowan Hamilton discovered the
non-commutative
In mathematics, a binary operation is commutative if changing the order of the operands does not change the result. It is a fundamental property of many binary operations, and many mathematical proofs depend on it. Most familiar as the name of ...
algebraic system
In mathematics, an algebraic structure consists of a nonempty set ''A'' (called the underlying set, carrier set or domain), a collection of operations on ''A'' (typically binary operations such as addition and multiplication), and a finite set ...
known as
quaternions, while walking with his wife along the banks of the
Royal Canal.
[Twenty Years of the Hamilton Walk]
by Fiacre O Cairbre, Irish Mathematical Society
The Irish Mathematical Society ( ga, Cumann Matamaitice na hÉireann) or IMS is the main professional organisation for mathematicians in Ireland. The society aims to further mathematics and mathematical research in Ireland. Its membership is in ...
Bulletin 65 (2010), 33–49
History
The walk was launched in 1990 by Prof
Tony O'Farrell
Tony O'Farrell (born Anthony G. O'Farrell in 1947 in Dublin) is an Irish mathematician who is Professor Emeritus at Maynooth University. He has been in the Mathematics and Statistics Department there since 1975.
Early life
He was born in Dublin ...
of the Department of Mathematics at
St Patrick's College, Maynooth
St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth ( ga, Coláiste Naoimh Phádraig, Maigh Nuad), is the "National Seminary for Ireland" (a Roman Catholic college), and a pontifical university, located in the town of Maynooth, from Dublin, Ireland ...
.
[Irish mathematicians receive Maths Week Ireland Award]
The Irish Times
''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
, October 18, 2018 It starts at
DIAS Dunsink Observatory, where Hamilton lived and was the Director from 1827 to 1865, and ends at the spot where he recorded his discovery by carving the following equation on
Broom Bridge
Broom Bridge ( Irish: ''Droichead Broome''), also called Broome Bridge, and sometimes Brougham Bridge, is a bridge along Broombridge Road which crosses the Royal Canal in Cabra, Dublin, Ireland. Broome Bridge is named after William Broome, on ...
:
[
:
These are the basic relations which define the quaternions. The original inscription by Hamilton is no longer there, but a plaque erected by th]
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS)
and unveiled by the Taoiseach Éamon de Valera in 1958 marks the spot where he recorded his discovery.[
Many prominent mathematicians have attended the event; they include Wolf Prize winner Roger Penrose (2013), ]Abel Prize
The Abel Prize ( ; no, Abelprisen ) is awarded annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding mathematicians. It is named after the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829) and directly modeled after the Nobel Prizes. ...
and Copley Medal
The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society, for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science". It alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the biological sciences. Given every year, the medal is t ...
winner Andrew Wiles
Sir Andrew John Wiles (born 11 April 1953) is an English mathematician and a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford, specializing in number theory. He is best known for proving Fermat's Last Theorem, for which he was awar ...
(2003), Fields Medal
The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award h ...
lists Timothy Gowers (2004) and Efim Zelmanov
Efim Isaakovich Zelmanov (russian: Ефи́м Исаа́кович Зе́льманов; born 7 September 1955 in Khabarovsk) is a Russian-American mathematician, known for his work on combinatorial problems in nonassociative algebra and group th ...
(2009), and Nobel Prize winners Murray Gell-Mann (2002), Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg (; May 3, 1933 – July 23, 2021) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interact ...
(2005) and Frank Wilczek
Frank Anthony Wilczek (; born May 15, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and Nobel laureate. He is currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Direct ...
(2007).[Hamilton Walk]
Department of Mathematics at National University of Ireland Maynooth
At the end of the 1990s, O'Farrell's younger colleague Fiacre Ó Cairbre took over the organisation of the walk, but O'Farrell always gives a speech at Broome Bridge. O’Farrell and Ó Cairbre received the 2018 Maths Week Ireland Awarld for "outstanding work in raising public awareness of mathematics" resulting from the founding and nurturing of the Hamilton walk.[
It has been argued that the discovery of the quaternions, by revealing deep mathematical structures that did not obey the commutative law, allowed mathematicians to create new systems unbound by the rules of ordinary arithmetic. It follows that the climax of the Hamilton walk at Broom Bridge marks the exact spot where modern algebra was born.Hamilton Walk 2018]
Maynooth University: Press Release
Th
Hamilton Way
is a proposed foot and cycle path that follows the route of the Hamilton Walk, linking DIAS Dunsink Observatory to the Royal Canal.
References
External links
Trinity College, Dublin: School of Mathematics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Walk
Mathematics conferences
Walking events
Organizations established in 1990
Annual events in the Republic of Ireland
Tourist attractions in Dublin (city)
William Rowan Hamilton