History of Science

Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton developed a framework in the 1820s and 1830s that linked the paths of light rays and moving particles, an idea that later proved crucial to quantum mechanics. Born 220 years ago, Hamilton's work, including carving a formula on Dublin's Broome Bridge in 1843, built on earlier physics but revealed deeper connections only understood a century later. This insight helped shape modern theories of wave-particle duality.