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Tendril of the Hop and Tendril of the Vine: Peter Guthrie Tait and the Promotion of Quaternions, Part I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Chris Pritchard
Chris Pritchard*
Affiliation:
McLaren High School, Callander, Perthshire FK17 8JH
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Extract

Two days before his death in the summer of 1901 Peter Guthrie Tait gave his son some handwritten notes on quaternions for safekeeping. Though he had distinguished himself in many areas of mathematical physics and had influenced the work of Thomson and Maxwell it was his evangelical promotion of quaternions which would be remembered in the years to follow and it was fitting that his last energies be devoted to the cause.

Type
Articles
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 82 , Issue 493 , March 1998 , pp. 26 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 1998 

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References

1. O’Donnell, S.O., William Rowan Hamilton: Portrait of a Prodigy, Boole Press, Dublin, 1983.Google Scholar
2. Tait, P.G., An Elementary Treatise on Quaternions, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1867.Google Scholar
3. Crowe, M.J., History of Vector Analysis: The Evolution of the Idea of a Vectorial System, Dover, 1985.Google Scholar
4. Harman, P.M., The Scientific tetters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, Cambridge University Press, 1989, 1995.Google Scholar
5. Tait, P.G., Scientific Papers, Cambridge University Press, Vol. 1 (1898), Vol. 2 (1900).Google Scholar
6. Maxwell, J.C., Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Oxford, 1873.Google Scholar