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Sir William Rowan Hamilton

Irish Inventor - Quaternions

• Sir Hamilton learned 13 languages by the time he was 13! He was a child prodigy turned mathematician and physicist when, at age 15, he began reading the work of Isaac Newton.
• One of his biggest contributions to science and math included the development of "Hamiltonian Mechanics" which is still used today in determining satellite tracks. The Hamiltonian operator in physics and Hamiltonian cycles in graph theory are both named for him.
• His other major contribution was the invention of quaternions, which he discovered in 1843.