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If Hamilton had prevailed: Quaternions in physics. (English) Zbl 0836.01011

“This is a nostalgic account of how certain key results in modern theoretical physics (prior to World War II) can be expressed concisely in the language of quaternions, thus suggesting how they might have been discovered if Hamilton’s views had prevailed.” The word “nostalgic” seems appropriate although results concern Maxwell’s equations, special relativity, and quantum mechanics.
Reviewer: R.Duda (Wrocław)

MSC:

01A55 History of mathematics in the 19th century
01A60 History of mathematics in the 20th century
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References:

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