My first name is actually William. My mom was a mathematician who specialized in algebra and really liked quaternions. I like math, but I am really a physicist. And it took me some time to realize the connection between quaternions and 19th century vector analysis (i.e. Maxwell). By then I was moving on to grad school, and things were getting much more complicated. Rowan. PS As far as I know, I have no family relation to WRH. But I am a direct descendant from the old Dukes of Hamilton in Scotland, so who knows? Then again, I am a Hamilton on my dad's side, and my mom's side is just a bunch of Norwegian farmers from Minnesota... On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 9:27 PM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
I hope you named your son William ;-)
He's probably old enough now to learn about quaternions... In another year, you might have to teach him something non-associative!
At 09:15 PM 5/6/2011, Rowan Hamilton wrote:
When I was 17, I enrolled at the University of Texas and started working at a small Tokamak there in order to pay my rent and tuition. A year later I got accepted at Berkeley and went there to study Math and Physics. The professor I worked for at UT gave me the Feynman Lectures as a going away present. I studied them when I was an undergrad, and still have them to this day. One day I hope to pass them on to my son. He's only 7 now, so I don't know what his future interests will be. But he is very good at integer computation and fractions, which I consider a good sign for a boy his age.
On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 8:35 PM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
Actually, this is one book (actually _three_ books!) that you really want to buy. I marked up nearly every single page of all three volumes.
I think I learned more math from Knuth than from all of the rest of my math courses combined.
You can probably get the 3-volume set used if you look on EBay.
Another keeper: Feynmann's Lectures on Physics. You can learn more physics from these volumes than from any six other physics or math courses.
At 06:02 PM 5/6/2011, David Makin wrote:
Oh ! I guess |I'll have to read it properly at last (been meaning to for about 15 years). Previously I've just gleaned one or two gems from it but not read the whole thing - if I remember correctly the most useful item for me from it (in the past) was the max/med/min method to get the approx, 3D magnitude., though knowing my memory nowadays I could have got that from somewhere else entirely ;) Another visit to the library is in order.
On 6 May 2011, at 21:03, Henry Baker wrote:
Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, among others. I would hope that it is accessible to UK "A" levels!
At 12:37 PM 5/6/2011, David Makin wrote:
On 6 May 2011, at 19:53, Joerg Arndt wrote:
> * Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> [May 06. 2011 20:25]: >> You know that the Casio performs an inverse lookup for sure? >> >> As an aside, there is an interesting trend in symbolic algebra >> that's been going on for 35 years or so: doing less traditional >> algebra & more numerical calculations. E.g., instead of using >> bignums to compute the inverse of an integer determinant, compute >> the determinant mod p for enough p's; using "black box programs" to >> compute polynomials & computing the coefficients (if you really want >> them) by interpolating enough point values. > > Note this method (compute mod enough coprime moduli, then CRT) is > 1) exact > 2) bloody fast
Where can I find details of (compute mod enough coprime moduli, then CRT) ? (that someone with only UK "A" level math can understand) (I mean for example - what's CRT here ?)