Text: As for the quaternions, his second major discovery in algebra, Hamilton wrote about them as follows: "The quaternion [was] born, as a curious offspring of a quaternion of parents, say of geometry, algebra, metaphysics, and poetry ... I have never been able to give a clearer statement of their nature and their aim than I have done in two lines of a sonnet addressed to Sir John Herschel: "And how the one of Time, of Space the Three, Might in the Chain of Symbols girlded be." It is not so much to be wondered at, that they should have led me to strike out some new lines of research, which former methods had failed to suggest."

See Also: SCALAR; DOT

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