来自《耶鲁大学开放课程：基础物理 第15集 第15集》
-
Right.对 -
They were invented before relativity这是在相对论创立前 -
by Hamilton,由哈密顿发明的 -
and they are of great mathematical beauty.四元数充满着数学的魅力 -
They're a generalization of numbers.四元数将数字更进一步推广 -
You know, we generalize real numbers to complex numbers.你知道 我们从实数推广到复数 -
Then we went from complex numbers to things called quaternions.随后我们从复数推广到了四元数 -
They are also numbers.它们还是数字 -
You can multiply them by each other,并可以互乘 -
but the product A·B differs from the product B·A.但 A·B 与 B·A 的运算结果不同 -
They're called hyper-complex numbers这是超复数 -
where the order in which you multiply them matters.乘积顺序是对结果有影响的