William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford FRSwas an English mathematician and philosopher. Building on the work of Hermann Grassmann, he introduced what is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in his honour. The operations of geometric algebra have the effect of mirroring, rotating, translating, and mapping the geometric objects that are being modelled to new positions. Clifford algebras in general and geometric algebra in particular, have been of ever increasing importance to mathematical physics, geometry, and computing...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth4 May 1845
It cannot be doubted that theistic belief is a comfort and a solace to those who hold it, and that the loss of it is a very painful loss. It cannot be doubted, at least, by many of us in this generation, who either profess it now, or received it in our childhood and have parted from it since with such searching trouble as only cradle-faiths can cause. We have seen the spring sun shine out of an empty heaven, to light up a soulless earth; we have felt with utter loneliness that the Great Companion is dead.
We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.
An atom must be at least as complex as a grand piano.
Our lives our guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.
To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances.
If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future.
If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done from the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest.
Remember that [scientific thought] is the guide of action; that the truth which it arrives at is not that which we can ideally contemplate without error, but that which we may act upon without fear; and you cannot fail to see that scientific thought is not an accompaniment or condition of human progress, but human progress itself.
An atmosphere of beliefs and conceptions has been formed by the labours and struggles of our forefathers, which enables us to breathe amid the various and complex circumstances of our life.
There is no scientific discoverer, no poet, no painter, no musician, who will not tell you that he found ready made his discovery or poem or picture — that it came to him from outside, and that he did not consciously create it from within.
The scientific discovery appears first as the hypothesis of an analogy; and science tends to become independent of the hypothesis.
Thought is powerless, except it make something outside of itself: the thought which conquers the world is not contemplative but active.
The rule which should guide us in such cases is simple and obvious enough: that the aggregate testimony of our neighbours is subject to the same conditions as the testimony of any one of them.
Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him who holds it.