Article ID: CBB864123041

A Most Gossiped About Genius: Sir William Rowan Hamilton (2018)

unapi

The Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805–65) is often portrayed as an unhappily married alcoholic. We show how this image originated in the 1840s, caused by a combination of the strict social rules of the Victorian era and the then changing drinking habits in Ireland. In the 1880s Hamilton's biographer Graves tried to restore Hamilton's reputation by blaming Lady Hamilton for her husband's habits. This unintentionally caused his biography to become the basis of Hamilton's overall negative image. We argue for a far more positive description of Hamilton's private life. Thereafter we trace the evolution of the negative image using an anecdote about Hamilton's work habits and its increasingly distorted representations.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB864123041/

Similar Citations

Article Simmons, Charlotte; (2008)
William Rowan Hamilton and George Boole (/isis/citation/CBB000931920/)

Article Ehrhardt, Caroline; (2010)
A Social History of the “Galois Affair” at the Paris Academy of Sciences (1831) (/isis/citation/CBB000932775/)

Article Ehrhardt, Caroline; (2011)
Évariste Galois and the Social Time of Mathematics (/isis/citation/CBB001221117/)

Book Alexander, Amir; (2010)
Duel at Dawn: Heroes, Martyrs, and the Rise of Modern Mathematics (/isis/citation/CBB001020030/)

Book Houston, Ken; (2000)
Creators of Mathematics: The Irish Connection (/isis/citation/CBB000320401/)

Article Craig Fraser; Michiyo Nakane; (2023)
Canonical transformations from Jacobi to Whittaker (/isis/citation/CBB563006808/)

Book Hankins, Thomas L.; (2004)
Sir William Rowan Hamilton (/isis/citation/CBB000520068/)

Article Bruno, Giuseppe; Genovese, Andrea; Improta, Gennaro; (2011)
Routing Problems: A Historical Perspective (/isis/citation/CBB001034720/)

Article Nakane, Michiyo; Fraser, Craig G.; (2002)
The Early History of Hamilton-Jacobi Dynamics, 1834--1837 (/isis/citation/CBB000300291/)

Book Freund, Peter G. O.; (2007)
A Passion for Discovery (/isis/citation/CBB001250393/)

Article Enebakk, Vidar; (2009)
Lilley Revisited: Or Science and Society in the Twentieth Century (/isis/citation/CBB000952783/)

Book Juliana Adelman; (2009)
Communities of Science in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (/isis/citation/CBB484642492/)

Article Reidy, Michael; (2010)
John Tyndall's Vertical Physics: From Rock Quarries to Icy Peaks (/isis/citation/CBB001035173/)

Article Brazil, Marcus; Graham, Ronald L.; Thomas, Doreen A.; Zachariasen, Martin; (2014)
On the History of the Euclidean Steiner Tree Problem (/isis/citation/CBB001214201/)

Article Craik, Alex D. D.; (2013)
In Search of Thomas Knight: Part 2 (/isis/citation/CBB001213291/)

Article Cox, David A.; (2011)
Why Eisenstein Proved the Eisenstein Criterion and Why Schönemann Discovered It First (/isis/citation/CBB001211029/)

Article Muntersbjorn, Madeline; (2012)
On the Intellectual Heritage of Henri Poincaré (/isis/citation/CBB001210329/)

Authors & Contributors
Nakane, Michiyo
Fraser, Craig G.
Ehrhardt, Caroline
Zachariasen, Martin
Verburgt, Lukas M.
Thomas, Doreen A.
Concepts
Mathematics
Mathematicians
Science and society
Biographies
Physics
Algebra
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
Places
Ireland
France
Great Britain
Zurich (Switzerland)
Paris (France)
Institutions
Cambridge University
Académie des Sciences, Paris
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment