Tait

Peter Guthrie Tait

Born: 28 April 1831 in Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland
Died: 4 July 1901 in Edinburgh, Scotland

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Tait was at school with Maxwell. Although his early career was in mathematics and he held a chair of mathematics in Belfast for 6 years, most of his later work was in natural philosophy.

Tait became an advocate of Hamilton's quaternions and made contributions to their study, for example in Elementary Treatise on Quaternions (1867), and Introduction to Quaternions (1873). He was a colleague of Chrystal at Edinburgh University where he had been appointed in 1860, chosen in preference to Maxwell who was also a candidate for the post.

Jointly with Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) Tait wrote an important treatise Treatise on Natural Philosophy which was published in 1867. After this Tait concentrated on thermoelectricity and thermal conductivity.

Tait also wrote a classic paper on the trajectory of golf balls. With the physicist Balfour Stewart he wrote The Unseen Universe (1867), and, because of the demand, a sequel Paradoxical Philosophy (1878).

References elsewhere in this archive:

Tell me about Tait's work on the four colour theorem

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. C G Knott, Life and Scientific Work of Peter Guthrie Tait (Cambridge, 1911).
  4. C Denley and C Pritchard, The Golf Ball Aerodynamics of Peter Guthrie Tait, Mathematical Gazette 77 (1993), 298-313. 
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