George Johnstone Stoney introduced the term electron in 1891 . John Stewart Bell was the originator of Bell 's Theorem and a paper concerning the discovery of the Bell @-@ Jackiw @-@ Adler anomaly and was nominated for a Nobel prize . Notable mathematicians include Sir William Rowan Hamilton , famous for work in classical mechanics and the invention of quaternions . Francis Ysidro Edgeworth 's contribution of the Edgeworth Box remain influential in neo @-@ classical microeconomic theory to this day ; while Richard Cantillon inspired Adam Smith , among others . John B. Cosgrave was a specialist in number theory and discovered a 2000 @-@ digit prime number in 1999 and a record composite Fermat number in 2003 . John Lighton Synge made progress in different fields of science , including mechanics and geometrical methods in general relativity . He had mathematician John Nash as one of his students .