Irish prodigy ignored and misrepresented
He was also a child prodigy, poet, philosopher, astronomer and visionary.
He was made a professor in TCD when he was still an undergraduate, and, at 22 years of age, was made astronomer royal.
His work and discoveries are internationally known and renowned. Scientists in NASA use his quaternions to plan trajectories used in the exploration of space; his work is also used in development of computers.
His stature is in the family of Newton and Einstein.
None of the Irish broadsheet newspapers featured an article on him or his achievements on the day of his bicentenary, August 4 last.
An Post issued a commemorative stamp and managed not to reproduce his formulas as carved by him.
While Hamilton was walking along the banks of the Royal Canal, in a flash of genius he discovered quaternions and carved with a penknife the formulas on the stone bridge known as Brougham Bridge.
This is what he carved:
i” = j” = k” = ijk = -1.
This is not what is reproduced on the stamp. It should be withdrawn.
Apart altogether from quaternions, last month I went to the GPO, bought a stamp and posted an invitation to friends of mine on July 5 to attend a reception in the Blackrock Clinic on July 12. They received the invitation on July 19, a week after the function. This was to an address in Rathfarnham, Dublin 14. So much for An Post.
And on yet another matter entirely, the Latin compound and abridged word ‘exit’ means ‘way out’. Most know its meaning. Germans use the compound word ‘ausgang,’ which means way out.
Every schoolboy and girl knows that either ‘slí amach’ or ‘bealach amach’ translates as exit.
But the chairman and board of CIÉ do not know this. The word amach is plastered in every train station in the country as a translation of ‘exit’. The word ’amach’ is meaningless in this context. It simply shows the crass ignorance publicly displayed by CIÉ management.
As Shakespeare put it, “Amach amach, brief candle.” Why can we not get anything right in this country?
Micheál Ó Nualláin
Belgrave Square
Monkstown
Co Dublin
