Subject: [HM] DeValera and Irish mathematics (was: Euclid and USA Politics)
From: John Harper (John.Harper@MCS.VUW.AC.NZ)
Date: Tue Feb 01 2000 - 15:13:59 EST
On Fri, 28 Jan 2000, John Harper wrote:
> Was there any similar mathematical influence on Ireland? Eamon de Valera
> taught mathematics in an Irish teachers' college, and he subsequently
> became Ireland's first prime minister, and later its president.
That drew a useful comment from David Attis <daattis@Princeton.EDU>
which I am happy to pass on, with his permission:
> Mike Mahoney forwarded your message to me. I'm a PhD student in the
> history of science at Princeton and happen to be writing my dissertation
> on the history of mathematics in Ireland. I decided to reply to you
> directly because I've never posted to a list before and got nervous
> about butting into a conversation in which I had only heard the last
> sentence. (That said, feel free to post this if you feel others may be
> interested.)
> DeValera is a fascinating figure in that he remained fascinated by
> mathematics his entire life at the same time that he embodied the
> nationalist, Catholic and agrarian values that some have seen as
> antiscientific forces in Irish history. I can't speak to the degree to
> which mathematics shaped DeValera's political ideas, though apparently
> his political papers are covered with mathematical jottings in the
> margins. DeValera also maintained close contact with a number of
> mathematicians and attended mathematical colloquia at Trinity College
> Dublin until the end of his life. He remained a life-long devotee of the
> quaternion algebra of William Rowan Hamilton (Royal Astronomer of
> Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century). There is even evidence that
> while awaiting his expected execution in Kilmainham Gaol after the 1916
> Easter Rising, DeValera scratched Hamilton's quaternion equations into
> the wall.
> Most importantly, DeValera was instrumental in the creation of the
> Dublin Institute for Advanced Study which had divisions for Theoretical
> Physics and Celtic Studies. He personally persuaded Schrodinger to sit
> out the war in Dublin, and it must have pleased him to no end when
> Schrodinger spoke of the centrality of the Hamiltonian equation to all
> of modern physics.
> I'd be happy to supply you with more references if you're
> interested.
>
> David Attis
John Harper, School of Mathematical and Computing Sciences,
Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
e-mail john.harper@vuw.ac.nz phone (+64)(4)463 5341 fax (+64)(4)463 5045
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