Hestenes Oersted Medal Lecture

Hestenes's 2002 Oersted Medal Lecture, "Reforming the Mathematical Language of Physics" (http://geocalc.clas.asu.edu/pdf/OerstedMedalLecture.pdf)

In this lecture Hestenes is arguing for a reform of the way in which mathematics is taught to physicists. He asserts that using Geometric Algebra will make it easier to understand the fundamentals of physics, because the mathematical language will be clearer and more uniform.

He also explains some of the background and gives an introduction and some examples. He has been working in this field since 1966.

He refers to some follow-up lectures - any references to those would be welcome.

-- JohnFletcher

[Where exactly does he refer to follow-up lectures?]

Not sure about that literally, but he certainly referred to previous material. -- doug
Page 23 - "Moreover, the approach generalises to Lorentz transformations, as will be demonstrated in a subsequent paper." -- JohnFletcher
Page 27 - "Extension to the Dirac theory will be covered in a sequel to this paper." -- JohnFletcher

I personally ran across this through being unsatisfied with the traditional approaches to vector arithmetic as reflected in software I wrote long ago, and upon reviewing it, vaguely remembered mention of some newer less-traditional approaches, searched, and the Hestenes paper was pretty close to the first substantial hit I found. I was long ago exposed to CliffordAlgebras but never saw any connection, back then. -- DougMerritt

Hestenes web site does have some further lectures listed at http://geocalc.clas.asu.edu/html/Overview.html and http://geocalc.clas.asu.edu/html/UGC.html

Spacetime Physics with Geometric Algebra
- http://geocalc.clas.asu.edu/pdf/SpacetimePhysics.pdf
Gauge Theory Gravity with Geometric Calculus
- http://geocalc.clas.asu.edu/pdf/GTG.w.GC.FP.pdf

and further papers. -- JohnFletcher

Note: All web references checked February 2010 and changed as needed. -- JohnFletcher

CategoryMath CategoryPaper CategoryPhysics