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Alexander Leicester McAulay (1863 - 1931) was an explorer of Clifford biquaternion theory and was the first professor of mathematics and physics at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania. McAulay was born 9 December 1863 and attended Caius College, Cambridge, taking his degree in 1886.^[1] He studied quaternions intensively at Cambridge. Departing for Australia, he lectured at Ormond College, University of Melbourne from 1893 to 1895. He was an advocate of quaternion calculus for modeling physical relations.

Peter Guthrie Tait praised MacAulay's book Utility of Quaternions in Physics in these terms:

Here, at last, we exclaim, is a man who has caught the full spirit of the quaternion system: the real aestus, the awen of the Welsh Bards, the divinus afflatus that transports the poet beyond the limits of sublunary things! Intuitively recognizing its power, he snatches up the magnificent weapon which Hamilton tenders us all, and at once dashes off to the jungle on the quest of big game.

McAulay took up the position in Tasmania from 1896 until 1929. In 1898 he published through Cambridge his Octonions: a Development of Clifford's Biquaternions.

MacAulay died 6 July 1931. His brother Francis Sowerby Macaulay, who stayed in England, also contributed to ring theory.

References

• 1892 Rev N M Ferres, Review of "On the Mathematical Theory of Electromagnetism", in Proc. Royal Society, London, v.51,p.400
• 1893 A. MacAulay Utility of Quaternions in Physics London.
• 1893, 28 December Nature P.G. Tait review quoted above.
• 1895 Rev n M Ferres, Preview of Octonions, ibid. v.59,p.169.
• 1900 A. MacAulay "Notes on the Electromagnetic Theory of Light", Phil.Mag.(5)v.49,pp.228-242.
• 1967 M.J. Crowe A History of Vector Analysis, U. Notre Dame Press. Chapter 6 details MacAulay's four contributions in 1893 and 94 to the debate on vectors and quaternions.
• Public lectures in 2002 at University of Tasmania

External links

• Australian Dictionary of Biography