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What is the origin of this notation? Who coined them and for what purpose?

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    $\begingroup$ I'm retagging your question, since it is really about history (and not about algebraic geometry) $\endgroup$
    – Yemon Choi
    Oct 24, 2011 at 4:16
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    $\begingroup$ Just a guess: Brougham Bridge, Dublin, Oct. 16 1843, W.R. Hamilton, quaternions. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_quaternions $\endgroup$ Oct 24, 2011 at 4:43
  • $\begingroup$ While this is a mildly interesting historical question, I do not think MO should become a repository for asking 'where does this common notation come from?' style questions. Searching on google for "history of mathematical notation" gives a number of interesting pages. $\endgroup$
    – David Roberts
    Oct 24, 2011 at 6:41
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    $\begingroup$ ...but admittedly not the answer to this question. $\endgroup$
    – David Roberts
    Oct 24, 2011 at 6:42

1 Answer 1

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Maybe it originates from Hamilton's quaternions $\mathbb{H}$, which has a basis $1,i,j,k$ as a real vector space, and the multiplications there, namely, $i\cdot j=k, j\cdot k=i, k\cdot i=j$ correspond exactly to the wedge product in $\mathbb{R}^3$. So $\mathbb{R}^3$ can be viewed as the imanginary part of $\mathbb{H}$.

Anyway, this is just my understanding or my guess.

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    $\begingroup$ For further discussion of this perspective, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… $\endgroup$ Oct 24, 2011 at 5:05
  • $\begingroup$ Hamilton's original paper on quaternions starts thus: "Let an expression of the form Q = w + ix + jy + kz be called a quaternion,..." So I think that your guess might be right. $\endgroup$ Oct 24, 2011 at 10:59
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    $\begingroup$ One could then speculate that there were the complex numbers with $i$ an imaginary number, and when Hamilton needed three more of them, he just used the next letters in the alphabet. $\endgroup$ Oct 24, 2011 at 11:13
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    $\begingroup$ Apparently, it was E. B. Wilson's book, Vector Analysis: A Text Book for the Use of Students of Mathematics and Physics Founded upon the Lectures of J. Willard Gibbs (1901), that propagated Hamilton's convention. See jeff560.tripod.com/matrices.html . $\endgroup$ Oct 24, 2011 at 11:31
  • $\begingroup$ Interestingly the Nabla-operator was also first used in Quaternionic Analysis, and even the modern Symbol originates with W.(?) Tait who after Sir Hamiltons death was wildely considered to be the leader of the "quaternionic school"- look if your local library has his "elements of the quaternions" (or something like that so?! from 1880- quite fascinating to browse through today... Back then it was wildely consideed to be superior to vector-calculus in some circles now a lot of people don't even know what quaternions are... $\endgroup$
    – sisn
    Oct 25, 2011 at 0:01

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