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
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.
The aim of scientific thought, then, is to apply past experience to new circumstances; the instrument is an observed uniformity in the course of events. By the use of this instrument it gives us information transcending our experience, it enables us to infer things that we have not seen from things that we have seen; and the evidence for the truth of that information depends on our supposing that the uniformity holds good beyond our experience.
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.
An atom must be at least as complex as a grand piano.
There is one thing in the world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will to obey.
Thought is powerless, except it make something outside of itself: the thought which conquers the world is not contemplative but active.
The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.
All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.
The scientific discovery appears first as the hypothesis of an analogy; and science tends to become independent of the hypothesis.
We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, then when we have lost our way and do not know where to turn.
To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances.
Our lives our guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.
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.
If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future.