Talk:William Kingdon Clifford/Archive 1

Naming of the Algebras
Does anyone know when the maths community decided to name the algebras as Clifford Algebras? I suspect it was in the 1980s but cannot find any information. I didn't call them that when at university a long time ago. --ChrisLit (talk) 11:20, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Marcel Riesz (1958) Clifford Numbers and Spinors and David Hestenes (1966) Spacetime Algebra were used to start the Clifford Algebra Society. Note that Clifford did put forward split-biquaternions, an algebra replacing complex numbers with split-complex numbers. Rgdboer (talk) 03:56, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you Rgdboer for those references. I found a reference to a 1980 paper with "Clifford Algebra" in the title, so 1970s would be a better suspicion. I struggled ineffectually with the defunct C.A. Society and the Wayback machine so it stays a suspicion. ChrisLit (talk) 09:25, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Pictures and Epitaph
My photograph of the grave is not very good. Perhaps someone else has something better. -- Better pictures, perhaps of Clifford and his wife, for the article are desirable. -- Astrochemist 03:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Wave Structure of Matter
The Wave Structure of Matter article links here but there is no link the other way. Everything ok? Cutler July 2, 2005 13:31 (UTC)
 * I can't find the relevant article to which the above query refers. Has it been changed? - Astrochemist 14:03, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Possible Biographical Material

 * The material below was added by a user in 2004, but no source was supplied. It appears to have been taken from Ten British Mathematicians of the 19th Century by Alexander Macfarlane, published in 1916. For a pdf copy, see http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/tbmms10p.pdf. - Astrochemist 14:03, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

"William Kingdon Clifford (May 4, 1845 - March 3, 1879) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He was born at Exeter, England. His father was a well-known and active citizen and filled the honorary office of justice of the peace; his mother died while he was still young. It is believed that Clifford inherited from his mother not only some of his genius, but a weakness in his physical constitution. He received his elementary education at a private school in Exeter, where examinations were annually held by the Board of Local Examinations of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; at these examinations Clifford gained numerous distinctions in widely different subjects. When fifteen years old he was sent to King's College London, where he not only demonstrated his peculiar mathematical abilities, but also gained distinction in classics and English literature. ..."


 * I just now deleted about 20 paragraphs of copied text at this location. See the history tab (above) to read them. The source of the material is a book by Macfarlane, given above.  -- Astrochemist (talk) 21:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

"... The Phaedo of Plato is more satisfying to the mind than the Unseen Universe of Tait and Stewart. In it, Socrates discusses with his friends the immortality of the soul, just before taking the draught of poison. One argument he advances is, How can the works of an artist be more enduring than the artist himself? This is a question which comes home in force when we peruse the works of Peacock, De Morgan, Hamilton, Boole, Cayley and Clifford." - Recentchanges (talk) 21:50, 27 January 2004 (UTC)

On one of the Quotations attributed to Clifford
The quotation attributed in the main text to Clifford, namely
 * "We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra."

is more likely to be (please also note that the first algebra is not followed by comma):
 * "We may always depend on it that the algebra that cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra."

Please kindly check the original source and, if indeed necessary, modify the sentence accordingly. Note that "cannot be translated into good English ..." being a restrictive clause for "algebra", that is the appropriate choice and not which. It is remarkable that "good English" should feature in this very quotation! With kind regards, -- BF, BehnamFarid (talk) BF 20:09, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I traced the quotation to section 7, chapter 6 of Clifford's The Common Sense of Science. The quotation is printed with "which" and with the two commas.  I completely agree with BehnamFarid that the wording is poor, and so I'm going to delete the quotation.  I'm hesitant to edit it in the article. Comments and advice are welcome. -- Astrochemist (talk) 21:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Bad grammar
The sentence "For arguing..." is ungrammatical.

Missing geometry
Earlier versions of the article did at least mention that Clifford had considered the topology or Riemann surfaces. Whatever editing process led to this work being cut, Clifford's contributions such as Clifford's theorem on special divisors should certainly be mentioned. There is ongoing research in this area, and technically it addresses a profound issue. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:10, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Though verified, this link is unnecessary and has been removed. The template for MacTutor has been invoked for this biography. — Rgdboer (talk) 02:17, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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