Hamilton and Lloyd
New Perspectives on the Work of Hamilton and Lloyd
William Rowan Hamilton was an undergraduate of Trinity College, and became Andrews Professor of Astronomy even before he graduated. He is known for his work on dynamics and as the inventor of quaternions. In 1832 he predicted conical refraction, and it was confirmed experimentally by Humphrey Lloyd, Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in Trinity.
In 2005 Ireland celebrated the 200th anniversary of Hamilton's birth as the `Year of Hamilton'. Events included seminars and demonstrations of conical refraction. Europhysics News published `The ins and outs of conical refraction' by Professors James Lunney and Denis Weaire (of the School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin). The article is reproduced here by kind permission of the editors of Europhysics News.
`The ins and outs of conical refraction', from Europhysics News, 37 pp 26-29 (2005).
Last updated: Dec 14 2006. | back to top