History
W. R. Hamilton introduced quaternions in 1843 and by 1873 W. K. Clifford obtained a broad generalization of these numbers that he called biquaternions, which is an example of what is now called a Clifford algebra. At the turn of the 20th century, Aleksandr Kotelnikov and E. Study developed dual vectors and dual quaternions for use in the study of mechanics.
In 1891 Eduard Study realized that this associative algebra was ideal for describing the group of motions of three-dimensional space. He further developed the idea in Geometrie der Dynamen in 1901. B. L. van der Waerden called the structure "Study biquaternions", one of three eight-dimensional algebras referred to as biquaternions.
Read more about this topic: Dual Quaternion
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