Alexander McAulay

Alexander McAulay (9 November 1863 – 5 July 1931) was a mathematician and physicist who was the first professor of mathematics and physics at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia. He was also a proponent of dual quaternions, which he termed "octonions" or "Clifford biquaternions".

Life McAulay was born on 9 November 1863 and attended Kingswood School in Bath. He proceeded to Caius College, Cambridge, there taking up a study of the quaternion algebra. In 1883 he published an article "Some general theorems in quaternion integration". McAulay took his degree in 1886, and began to reflect on the instruction of students in quaternion theory. In an article "Establishment of the fundamental properties of quaternions", he suggested improvements to the texts then in use. He also wrote a technical article on integration.

Departing for Australia, he became a lecturer and tutor in mathematics at Ormond College, University of Melbourne, from 1888 to 1895, being appointed first lecturer of mathematics in 1893. In 1893 his book Utility of Quaternions in Physics was published. A. S. Hathaway contributed a positive review and Peter Guthrie Tait praised it in these terms:

In 1896, McAulay took up the position of first professor of mathematics and physics at the newly-founded University of Tasmania. He ceased teaching in 1924 due to incipient blindness and was selected as research professor until his retirement in 1929.

McAulay died from cerebral haemorrhage on 5 July 1931, in his home at Sandy Bay, Tasmania, and was buried in Hobart.

Works 1893: Utility of Quaternions in Physics, link from Project Gutenberg. 1898: Octonions: a development of Clifford's Biquaternions, link from Internet Archive 1900: "Notes on the Electromagnetic Theory of Light", Philosophical Magazine 49(5):228–242.