"Symmetrical equations are good in their place, but 'vector' is a useless survival, or offshoot from quaternions, and has never been of the slightest use to any creature."
— William Thomson

January 1, 1970

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Natural philosophersBritish peersEngineersAcademics from Northern IrelandMathematicians from Northern Ireland
Original Language: English

Sources

Letter to G. F. FitzGerald (1896) as quoted in A History of Vector Analysis : The Evolution of the Idea of a Vectorial System (1994) by Michael J. Crowe, p. 120