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Hamilton's first ever publication of his research regarding quaternions, originally read at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin on November 13, 1843 & published for the first time in this R.I.A. official publication in the Science section of Volume 21 of the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, pp. 151-341. Hamilton's paper is on pp. 199-296. Other papers included and read on different dates at the Academy are: (1) Rev. Samuel Haughton. On the Equilibrium and Motion of solid and fluid bodies (1846); (2) Rev. Thomas Romney Robison. On the effect of heat in lessening the Affinities of the Elements of Water. (1847); (3.) John Radford Young. On an extension of a Theorem of Euler, with a determination of the limit beyond which it fails. (1847). All the foregoing are in the Science section. The Polite Literature section includes 5 essays read by Rev. Edward Hincks.(1) On the defacement of Divine and Royal Names on Egyptian monuments. (1844) & (2) On the first and second kinds of Persopolitan Writing (1846); (3) An Attempt to ascertain the number, names and powers of the Letters of the Hieroglyphic; or ancient Egyptian Alphabet; grounded on the establishment of a New Principle in the use of Phonetic Characters. (1846); (4) On the three kinds of Persopolitan Writing, and on the Babylonian Lapidary Characters. (1846); (5) On the third Persopolitan Writing, and on the mode of expressing Numerals in Cuneatic Characters. (1847); (6) Rev. Charles William Wall. On the different kinds of Cuneiform Writing in the triple Inscriptions of the Persians, and on the Language transmitted through the first kind. (1847). The final section on Antiquities includes: (1) James Henthorn Todd. Remarks on some fragments of an ancient Waxed Table-book, found in a bog at Maghera, County of Derry, and presented to the Royal Irish Academy by the Rev. J. Spencer Knox. (1845); (2) W.R. Wilde (Oscar's father). Descriptionof an ancient Irish Shrine called the "Mias Tighernain." (1846). In contemporary board bindings with original paper label title on spine. The label is faded, worn and has partial loss, but is still legible. The spine is split along front edge and at ends with small loss. Pages uncut at top edge. Accompanying the volume is: Sean O'Donnell's book: William Rowan Hamilton Portrait of a Prodigy.Pp. xvi, 224. Illustrated. V.g. in d.j. (1983). William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) was born in Dublin and spent his childhood in Trim, Co. Meath was perhaps Ireland's greatest polymath, made contributions to many areas of mathematics.He became a professor of Astronomy and took up residence as Director of Dunsink Observatory at Abbotstown aged only 21 in 1826. The invention of quaternions, an extension of complex numbers, is the achievement for which he is most often remembered. Hamilton's first presentation of this work was to the Royal Irish Academy in 1843 and the first note was in the Philosophical Magazine (1844). A full exposition of his ideas, reflective of his lecture of 1843, was not published until this issue. Hamilton in a letter to Professor Augustus De Morgan dated May 7, 1847, writes in part: ."My manuscript researches respecting quaternions and their application to geometry and physics, having attained a considerable extent, and a number of scattered notices (themselves by this time not very small in bulk), having been printed, I am urged by my friends in Dublin, and am myself now desirous, to make at least a beginning of that more full and formal publication which I have all along intended. After many hesitations as to whether I should not at once proceed to the parts which are more likely to interest and not to shock mathematical readers in general, I have decided on following a more historical order; and have handed it to the Committee of Publication of the Royal Irish Academy.
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