Who found the quaternions?

Modern math walks around like it invented the idea of a three-way structure nobody ever saw before — i, j, k, three directions, fancy notation, all that chest-puffing about “higher dimensions.”

And then you open Agrippa — the occult guy from the 1500s — and he’s sitting there writing the same structure in plain language.

Look:

Agrippa literally writes:

Fire applied twice returns to the One.

Air applied twice returns to the One.

Water applied twice returns to the One.

Modern math:

i² = –1

j² = –1

k² = –1

Same pattern: three generators, each tied to the same base.

Then Agrippa:

Fire with Water → Air

Water with Air → Fire

Air with Fire → Water

Exact same triad cycle modern math uses:

i j = k

j k = i

k i = j

Reverse the order, Agrippa says the result flips into its “contrary.” Reverse the order in math and the sign flips negative.

Put them side by side and the match is embarrassing.

The system treated like the peak of modern abstraction — the “too advanced for ordinary people to grasp” stuff — is already fully present in the work of a Renaissance magician.

Not close or similar. Exact structural overlap.

So if anyone wants to act like these modern equations came out of a vacuum, they can explain why Agrippa wrote the whole apparatus centuries earlier while talking about Fire, Air, and Water.

The math wasn’t “invented.” It was rediscovered with better typography.