quaternion

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

If you derive a quaternion multiplication table from the fundamental formula Hamilton carved into Broome Bridge, you’ll find that ij = k, but ji = -k.

From Slate • Oct. 14, 2016

Indeed, mere months after Hamilton’s quaternion brain wave, his friend John T. Graves debuted “octaves,” a kind of double quaternion now called octonions.

From Slate • Oct. 14, 2016

Four great patriarchs are the hypothetical progenitors of the four primary Afghan divisions—though it is uncertain whether any such quaternion be more of an historical reality than the four castes of Brahminism.

From The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies by Latham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)

It seems, therefore, reasonable to assume that our fragment is not a complete unit, but formed part of a quaternion, the outside sheet of which is missing.

From A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger A Study of Six Leaves of an Uncial Manuscript Preserved in the Pierpont Morgan Library New York by Lowe, E. A. (Elias Avery)

It is doubtful if you even know what a quaternion is, still less how it functions; probably you think of it as a small four-legged animal with a hard shell.

From If I May by Milne, A. A. (Alan Alexander)