William Kingdon Clifford

William Clifford FRS
William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879)
Born	4 May 1845 (1845-05-04) Exeter, Devon, England
Died	3 March 1879 (1879-03-04) (aged 33) Madeira, Portugal
Alma mater	King's College London Trinity College, Cambridge
Known for	Clifford algebra Clifford's circle theorems Clifford's theorem Clifford torus Clifford–Klein form Clifford parallel Bessel–Clifford function Dual quaternion Elements of Dynamic
Spouse	Lucy Clifford (1875–1879)
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics Philosophy
Institutions	University College London
Doctoral students	Arthur Black

William Kingdon Clifford FRS (4 May 1845 – 3 March 1879) was a British 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,^[1] geometry,^[2] and computing.^[3] Clifford was the first to suggest that gravitation might be a manifestation of an underlying geometry. In his philosophical writings he coined the expression mind-stuff.