[FRIAM] The Strange Numbers That Birthed Modern Algebra

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This book has been in my wishlist for-fscking-ever (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tmesis#English - thanks Dave!):

New Foundations for Classical Mechanics
https://bookshop.org/books/new-foundations-for-classical-mechanics-9789027725264/9789027725264


On 9/7/20 2:48 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> Tom -
> 
> Great find!   I'd never seen the "belt trick" animated like this...
> 
> SimTable's progress finally has demanded widespread adoption of quaternions for the "traditional" reason of gimbal lock but with other side-benefits here and there.    This has lead to a strong spate of most of the team trying to "wrap their heads around" this abstraction which reminded me that MY head has never fully wrapped itself into the implied Minkowski space, even if I feel like I've "tumbled" through 4D and higher (ala conversations with Dave West on such phantasms) in my VR and Lucid Dream experiences... I can't say I was truly experiencing a complex vector space. 
> 
> Hise's ( the animator/illustrator in your link) other animations are also helpful:
> 
>     Gimbal - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRvuIuSkL6Y
> 
> I don't believe the connection is anything more than superficial but I, like many here have spent a lifetime fighting tangled power cords, hoses, bungees, and ropes, and watching things tangle, and then untangle this way is pretty familiar/inspirational!   I was surprised to discover that the Dirac Belt Trick is homomorphic to professor Caractacus Potts' plate prestidigitatoin.
> 
>     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc9h6FC6QgU
> 
> (odd factiod, did anyone know that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang started life as an Ian Fleming children's book with none other than Roald Dahl providing much of the movie-versions set and object design?)
> 
> ramble,
> 
>  - Steve
> 
>> 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


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