William Clifford. 1845-1879
William Kingdon Clifford was a leading mathematician, an
influential philosopher and FRS. A leading champion of Darwin's
evolutionary theory, and of scientific methods of reasoning, he
sought an understanding of the nature of the universe and of the
human mind and morality. He was forty years ahead of Einstein in
proposing the concept of curved space.
Clifford Algebra, which is fundamental to Dirac's theory of
the electron, has now become significant in many areas of
mathematics, physics and engineering.
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Lucy Clifford. 1846-1929
In 1874 Clifford married Lucy Lane, then already
taking her first steps towards success as a novelist. During
their four years of marriage, their Sunday salons attracted many
famous scientific and literary personalities. After William's
early death, Lucy became a close friend and confidante of Henry
James. Amongst her wide circle of friends were George Eliot,
Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Thomas
Huxley, Leslie Stephen and Virginia Woolf.
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