[FRIAM] The Strange Numbers That Birthed Modern Algebra

[Tom Johnson]

Lovely.
TJ

============================================
Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
*NM Foundation for Open Government* <http://nmfog.org>
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On Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 2:27 PM Edward Angel <angel at cs.unm.edu> wrote:

> I wrote the following for Reuben Hersh’s memorial. The story is from when
> Reuben, Vera and I were in the same carpool to UNM.
>
> During one of our commutes, Reuben and I were sharing the back seat and
> Reuben brought up the subject of quaternions. For the mathematician
> quaternions, which are the extension of simple complex numbers from two to
> three dimensions, have a long and interesting history. Their discovery took
> a long time even though some of the best mathematicians worked the problem.
> Nevertheless, they are both simple and elegant. Reuben, of course, loved
> them for both the history and the mathematics and was going to talk about
> them in his upcoming class. I mentioned that quaternions are used
> extensively in computer graphics (any student who takes a class in computer
> graphics knows about them), animation (for designing camera paths),
> aerospace (for head mounted displays) and by NASA (in rocket control
> systems). Reuben was amazed. His response was “Someone actually uses
> them!?” When we got to Albuquerque, Reuben, still in a state of amazement,
> dragged me to his class, put me in front, and his introduction was “this
> guy is going to tell you how people actually use quaternions.” He then sat
> in the back, thoroughly enjoying my impromptu lecture.
>
> Ed
>
> _______________________
>
> Ed Angel
>
> Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory
> (ARTS Lab)
> Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
>
> 1017 Sierra Pinon
> Santa Fe, NM 87501
> 505-984-0136 (home)   angel at cs.unm.edu
> 505-453-4944 (cell)  http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
>
> On Sep 7, 2020, at 2:17 PM, Tom Johnson <tom at jtjohnson.com> wrote:
>
> The 19th-century discovery of numbers called “quaternions” gave
> mathematicians a way to describe rotations in space, forever changing
> physics and math.
>
>
> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-strange-numbers-that-birthed-modern-algebra-20180906/?fbclid=IwAR32bY8dnkg_hCYImiFlJgJL3g_r1CR9Eos4V_YEPcb7bvYJWlTe-8-83fY
>
>
> TJ
>
> ============================================
> Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com
> Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
> 505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
> *NM Foundation for Open Government* <http://nmfog.org/>
> *Check out It's The People's Data
> <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>*
>
> ============================================
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