- Cargill Gilston Knott
Cargill Gilston Knott (
June 30 ,1856 —October 26 ,1922 ) was born atPenicuik ,Scotland . He was a pioneer in seismological research, working inJapan 1883 – 91. His writings display a broad interest in knowledge. Knott was a student and collaborator ofPeter Guthrie Tait and later his biographer. As such he was familiar withquaternion algebra. When the tight constraints of a singlelinear algebra began to be felt in the 1890s and revisionists began publishing, Knott contributed the pivotal article "Recent Innovations in Vector Theory". As M.J. Crowe describes in his book (pp. 200-5), this paper set straight wayward theorists that expectedto findassociativity in systems likehyperbolic quaternion s. Knott wrote:: " [T] he assumption that the square of a unit vector is positive unity leads to an algebra whose characteristic quantities are non-associative."Evidently Knott overlooked the existence of the ring ofcoquaternion s. Nevertheless, Crowe states (p.216) that Knott "wrote with care and thoroughness" and that "only Knott was well acquainted with his opponents system".For a textbook on quaternions, lecturers and students relied on Tait and Kelland's "Introduction to Quaternions" which had editions in 1873 and 1882. It fell to C.G. Knott to prepare a third edition in 1904. By then the "Universal Algebra" of
Alfred North Whitehead (1898) presumed some grounding in quaternions as students encountered matrix algebra. In Knott's introduction to his textbook edition he says "Analytically the quaternion is now known to take its place in the general theory of complex numbers andcontinuous group s,...". Thus he was aware of the diversity to be encountered in modernmathematical structure s, and that quaternions stand as a milestone on the way to others.Knott took an active social role in his community including
Sunday school teaching and church affairs. He helped to found theEdinburgh Mathematical Society . When he diedOctober 26 ,1922 , in mid-stride, seemingly at the height of his powers, it is apparent that the Fellows of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh experienced some distress at his loss. As Whittaker wrote, they "morn the loss of one who for many years had been as General Secretary, the centre of their corporate activity."Honors
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Order of the Rising Sun , 1891. [Penicuik Community Development Trust (UK): [http://penicuikcdt.org.uk/Cargill_Knott.html Cargill Gilston Knott] ]Notes
References
* K.E. Bullen (1973) "Knott, Cargill Gilston" in "Dictionary of Scientific Biography", C.C. Gillespie editor, published by
American Council of Learned Societies .
* M.J. Crowe (1967)A History of Vector Analysis , esp. pp. 200-5 .
* C.G. Knott (1893) "Recent innovations in vector theory" "Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh" 9:212-37.Synopsis in "Nature" 47:590-3.
* E.T. Whittaker (1922) "Cargill Gilston Knott" (obituary) "Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh" 43:237 – 48. Includes a substantial but partial bibliography.See also
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O-yatoi gaikokujin
*James Alfred Ewing
*Arthur Schuster
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