A Flash of Genius.

We were truants yesterday. I don't like to play hooky, but when the idea of a mathematical field trip was proposed, what could I say?

Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton had spent some time trying to conjure up a method for multiplication in three variables, in the same way that complex multiplication works for 2-variables. That is, you can take two complex numbers, multiply them together, get another complex number, and everything is well-behaved and does precisely what a mathematician would want multiplication to do.

As legend has it, he was on his way to a wedding in Dublin, when in a so-called flash of genius a 4-dimensional solution occurred to him. He was in such a hurry (and no doubt prepared to drink one too many pints of Guinness), so he stopped to carve his discovery into one of the stones of the Broome Bridge, so that he could come back to it later. And this brings us to the present day.

Here as he walked by on the 16th of October 1843, Sir William Rowan Hamilton in a flash of genius discovered the fundamental formula for quaternion multiplication i²=j²=k²=ijk=-1 and cut it on a stone of this bridge.

Turns out Sir Rowan Hamilton lived in a bad part of town. I've spared you the gruesome imagery, but just beyond this idyllic scene is a sprawling industrial complex, waste management facility, razor wire, and garbage floating by in the river. But nothing could damped my verve at this moment!

Nor could it dampen the verve of Lola and Nava, fellow number theorists, and devotees of Hamilton's quaternions. Oh boy, I think I've outstripped myself in nerdiness once again.

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