Sir William Rowan Hamilton

Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805-65), British mathematician and astronomer, known chiefly for his work in vector analysis (see Vector) and in optics. Hamilton was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College. In 1827, while still an undergraduate, he was appointed professor of astronomy at Trinity College. The next year he was made Astronomer Royal for Ireland, and in 1835 he was knighted. Hamilton spent the rest of his life working at Trinity College and in the observatory at Dunsink, near Dublin. In the field of dynamics he introduced Hamiltonian functions, which express the sum of the kinetic and potential energies of a Dynamic system; they are important in the development of modern dynamics and for the study of quantum mechanics (see Quantum Theory).