16 Feb
2011
16 Feb
'11
10:21 p.m.
Alexei Sheplyakov wrote:
On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 07:34:55AM -0600, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
Non-commutative complex numbers? What's that? sorry, I am a mechanical engineer :-)
Quaternions.
Also known as (3-dimensional spin 1/2) spinors. I think calling them 'complex numbers' is a bit confusing.
Yes - I was giving the poster a lot of the benefit of the doubt.
Invented by Hamilton
Re-invented by Ehrenfest, Pauli, Dirac, and others. Extensively used in quantum mechanics.
I didn't know they were reinvented! They were some very smart people.