MacTutor
Charles Jasper Joly was the son of Rev. J. Swift Joly of Athlone and was born in 1864. As a boy at Galway Grammar School he was generally reputed to be clever but was not considered to have any special aptitude for mathematical science; indeed, it was only as he approached maturity that his remarkable powers became apparent. In 1882 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, taking a scholarship and ultimately the mathematical studentship of his year. From Dublin he went to Berlin and was for some time a student of experimental physics in the laboratory of Helmholtz and Koenig. In 1887, however, on the death of his father, he returned to Ireland and read for a Trinity Fellowship, which he was awarded in 1894. During his years of preparation he acquired a magnificent grasp of quaternions and every branch of mathematical physics, and almost immediately after his election a succession of memoirs, broken only by his death, showed his masterly power as an investigator.
In 1897 he succeeded Dr. Rambaut as Andrews Professor of Astronomy at the University of Dublin and Royal Astronomer of Ireland; he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1898 and took part in the successful Spanish eclipse expedition of 1900, which was sent out by the Royal Dublin Society and the Royal Irish Academy. But his time during the four years following his appointment was chiefly occupied in the gigantic task of preparing a new edition of the work on quaternions by his great predecessor, Hamilton. A large amount of additional matter was contributed by Joly himself, and the publication of the first volume in 1899 and the second volume in 1901 created a notable revival of interest in quaternion analysis; this was further stimulated by his own subsequent investigations, especially a memoir on Quaternions and Projective Geometry, which occupies over 100 pages in the Phil. Trans. of 1903.
In 1902 Joly became Secretary of the Royal Irish Academy and brought out a new edition of Preston's Theory of Light. In 1904 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1905 a Manual of Quaternions appeared from his pen, in which the Hamiltonian manner of establishing the laws of quaternions is replaced by one leading much more easily and directly to the desired goal.
Joly took a considerable part in scientific life in Ireland; he was a member of the Council of the Royal Dublin Society and a Trustee of the National Library of Ireland; at the time of his death he was President of the International Society for the Study of Quaternions. For Trinity College he performed many services, especially in connection with projected reforms.
His knowledge of literature, especially of Dante and Italian literature, was profound; and he also excelled in physical life, being an excellent mountaineer and a member of the Alpine Club.
His death from fever on January 4, 1906, at the early age of forty-one, is a great loss to science.
He is survived by Mrs. Joly, a daughter of the late R. W. Meade, Esq., and by three children.
In 1897 he succeeded Dr. Rambaut as Andrews Professor of Astronomy at the University of Dublin and Royal Astronomer of Ireland; he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1898 and took part in the successful Spanish eclipse expedition of 1900, which was sent out by the Royal Dublin Society and the Royal Irish Academy. But his time during the four years following his appointment was chiefly occupied in the gigantic task of preparing a new edition of the work on quaternions by his great predecessor, Hamilton. A large amount of additional matter was contributed by Joly himself, and the publication of the first volume in 1899 and the second volume in 1901 created a notable revival of interest in quaternion analysis; this was further stimulated by his own subsequent investigations, especially a memoir on Quaternions and Projective Geometry, which occupies over 100 pages in the Phil. Trans. of 1903.
In 1902 Joly became Secretary of the Royal Irish Academy and brought out a new edition of Preston's Theory of Light. In 1904 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1905 a Manual of Quaternions appeared from his pen, in which the Hamiltonian manner of establishing the laws of quaternions is replaced by one leading much more easily and directly to the desired goal.
Joly took a considerable part in scientific life in Ireland; he was a member of the Council of the Royal Dublin Society and a Trustee of the National Library of Ireland; at the time of his death he was President of the International Society for the Study of Quaternions. For Trinity College he performed many services, especially in connection with projected reforms.
His knowledge of literature, especially of Dante and Italian literature, was profound; and he also excelled in physical life, being an excellent mountaineer and a member of the Alpine Club.
His death from fever on January 4, 1906, at the early age of forty-one, is a great loss to science.
He is survived by Mrs. Joly, a daughter of the late R. W. Meade, Esq., and by three children.
Charles Jasper Joly's obituary appeared in Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 66:4 (1906), 177-178.