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Originally Posted by CraigS
Well … I'm happy to say that I finally got through to the end of this series, and I'm also happy to announce that indeed, Nicolas Bourbaki, DOES get a mention … in the very last episode !
What a great series … and what a bunch of towering giants these guys were!
I would have to say, that had they not pursued their passion for mathematics, our present day views of the infinite, what's possible and what's not, would remain completely unknown, and I seriously doubt whether any of us would have any chance of separating reality from delusion, when peering through a telescope.
A simply superb series.
Cheers
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An example of a towering giant was the Irish mathematician William Hamilton who was referring to 4 dimensional spacetime nearly 70 years before Einstein came across the idea.
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"Time is said to have only one dimension, and space to have three dimensions. ... The mathematical quaternion partakes of both these elements; in technical language it may be said to be 'time plus space', or 'space plus time': and in this sense it has, or at least involves a reference to, four dimensions. And how the One of Time, of Space the Three, Might in the Chain of Symbols girdled be."—William Rowan Hamilton
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