Dubliner made ‘one small scratch for man, but it was a giant scratch for mankind’
Deputy Lord Mayor Donna Cooney attended the ceremony at 36 Dominick Street, describing it as an “overdue honour” for the mathematician, astronomer and physicist.
William Rowan Hamilton made huge advances in mechanics, optics and mathematics in the 1800s. His work still features in university textbooks and has practical applications in areas from satellite control to 3D gaming.
“It’s an overdue honour to mark a man who changed our way of looking at the world and beyond,” councillor Cooney said.
“Famous worldwide, he loved and celebrated the city, and was born here in 36 Dominick Street on August 4, 1805.
“His father had not long returned to Dublin, having been to Philadelphia in the aftermath of the 1798 rebellion, where he rubbed shoulders with Wolfe Tone.
“Young William was sent to school in Trim and then on to Trinity College, where he was appointed professor of astronomy at the age of 21, while still an undergraduate. He was a genius from a very young age.
“Not content with that, he went on to shatter the basis of everything that mattered in physics and mathematics. Taking and turning it on its head, the methodology that had remained virtually unchanged since Ancient Greeks.
“This plaque may have been to a great writer, as many as our commemorative plaques are in Dublin. Hamilton saw mathematics as an extension of poetry. He said it was a toss of whether he would be a rhymer or a mathematician.
Anne van Weerden, proposer of the plaque, Deputy Lord Mayor Donna Cooney, and Professor Peter Gallagher of Dunsink Observatory, at 36 Dominick Street, the birthplace of William Rowan Hamilton. Photo: Chris Bellew / Fennell Photography
“He met William Wordsworth on a visit to the Lake District and they became close friends. Wordsworth later came to stay with him in Dublin.
“We should all be grateful he showed Wordsworth his poetry, because he told him to stick to the sums. We have many, many poets to celebrate in Dublin and not so many mathematicians.
“Oscar Wilde’s mother asked him to be godfather to Oscar, but Hamilton declined. Oscar would write eloquently about looking up at the stars.
“After his death, James Joyce lauded him in fiction, and more recently, Sebastian Barry based a play around him. I cannot think of anything more Dublin than this.”
The Deputy Lord Mayor continued to tell the crowd about when Hamilton had a eureka moment which changed the world of maths and physics, when he and his wife Helen were walking along the Royal Canal.
He had come up with a new algebra he called quaternions, and was so excited by this he took his penknife and etched the formula into stone at Broombridge.
This discovery would later help to put men on the moon, allow for the invention of Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) and even contributed to the design of electric toothbrush systems.
“It came to him when he was walking along the Royal Canal with his wife Helen on October 16, 1843. He cut the formula into the stone on the bridge in Cabra,” councillor Cooney said.
“He made that one small scratch for man, but it was a giant scratch for mankind.
“Out of it came radio, television, radar, X-rays, quantum mechanics, the structure of DNA, computer games and special effects in the movies.
“Fittingly, a moon crater has been named in his honour, one giant scratch indeed,” she added.
