ABSTRACT
The study of vector analysis is greatly facilitated by Michael Crowe’s book A History of Vector Analysis, which charts the evolution of the idea of a vectorial system. This most important and valuable work was first published in 1967 by the University of Notre Dame Press, and a new edition by Dover was published in 1985. In the preface to the first edition of 1967 Crowe makes the following important comment: Despite the importance of Vector analysis its history has been little studied. The notations and forms of analysis, used in the two systems are contrasted using for each their presentation of scalar and vector products and of Gauss’s, Stoke’s and Green’s theorems. James Clerk Maxwell made use of the vector part of quaternions in his treatise on Electricity and it was largely due to this that Josiah Willard Gibbs came to invent his form of vector analysis.
