Quote#Wisdom
Symmetrical equations are good in their place, but 'vector' is a…
Quote byWilliam Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin · 1825–1907
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to G. F. FitzGerald (1896) as quoted in A History of Vector Analysis : The Evolution of the Idea of a Vectorial System (1994) by Michael J. Crowe, p. 120.
English (original)
Symmetrical equations are good in their place, but 'vector' is a useless survival, or offshoot from quaternions, and has never been of the slightest use to any creature.
— William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
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Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.
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Quaternions came from Hamilton after his really good work had been done, and though beautifully ingenious, have been an unmixed evil to those who have touched them in any way.
Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.
I need scarcely say that the beginning and maintenance of life on earth is absolutely and infinitely beyond the range of sound speculation in dynamical science.