Everything about Peter Guthrie Tait totally explained
Peter Guthrie Tait (
April 28,
1831 -
July 4,
1901) was a
Scottish mathematical physicist, best known for the seminal energy physics textbook
Treatise on Natural Philosophy, which he co-wrote with
Kelvin.
Early years
He was born at
Dalkeith. After attending the
Edinburgh Academy and
University of Edinburgh, he went up to
Peterhouse, Cambridge, graduating as
senior wrangler and first
Smith's prizeman in
1852. As a fellow and lecturer of his college he remained in Cambridge for two years longer, and then left to take up the professorship of
mathematics at
Queen's College, Belfast. There he made the acquaintance of
Thomas Andrews, whom he joined in researches on the density of
ozone and the action of the electric discharge on
oxygen and other gases, and by whom he was introduced to Sir
William Rowan Hamilton and
quaternions.
Middle years
In
1860, Tait was chosen to succeed his old master,
JD Forbes, as professor of
natural philosophy at Edinburgh, and this chair he occupied till within a few months of his death. The first scientific paper that appears under Tait's name only was published in 1860. His earliest work dealt mainly with mathematical subjects, and especially with quaternions, of which he may be regarded as the leading exponent after their originator, Hamilton. He was the author of two text-books on them--one an
Elementary Treatise on Quaternions (1867), written with the advice of Hamilton, though not published till after his death, and the other an
Introduction to Quaternions (1873), in which he was aided by
Philip Kelland (1808-1879), who had been one of his teachers at Edinburgh. In addition, quaternions was one of the themes of his address as president of the mathematical section of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science in
1871.
But he also produced original work in mathematical and experimental physics. In
1864 he published a short paper on
thermodynamics, and from that time his contributions to that and kindred departments of science became frequent and important. In
1871 he emphasized the significance and future importance of the
principle of the dissipation of energy (
second law of thermodynamics). In
1873 he took
thermoelectricity for the subject of his discourse as
Rede lecturer at
Cambridge, and in the same year he presented the first sketch of his well-known thermoelectric diagram before the
Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Two years later researches on "Charcoal Vacua" with
James Dewar led him to see the true dynamical explanation of the
Crookes radiometer in the large
mean free path of the
molecule of the highly rarefied air. From
1879 to
1888 he was engaged on difficult experimental investigations, which began with an inquiry into the corrections required, owing to the great pressures to which the instruments had been subjected, in the readings of the thermometers employed by the
Challenger expedition for observing deep-sea temperatures, and which were extended to include the compressibility of
water,
glass and
mercury. This work led to the first formulation of the
Tait equation which is widely used to fit liquid density to pressure. Between
1886 and
1892 he published a series of papers on the foundations of the
kinetic theory of gases, the fourth of which contained what was, according to
Lord Kelvin, the first proof ever given of the
Waterston-
Maxwell theorem (
equipartition theorem) of the average equal partition of energy in a mixture of two gases. About the same time he carried out investigations into impact and its duration.
Many other inquiries conducted by him might be mentioned, and some idea may be gained of his scientific activity from the fact that a selection only from his papers, published by the
Cambridge University Press, fills three large volumes. This mass of work was done in the time he could spare from his professorial teaching in the university.
Later years
In addition, he was the author of a number of books and articles. Of the former, the first, published in
1865, was on the dynamics of a particle; and afterwards there followed a number of concise treatises on
thermodynamics, heat, light, properties of matter and dynamics, together with an admirably lucid volume of popular lectures on Recent Advances in Physical Science.
With Lord Kelvin, he collaborated in writing the well-known
Treatise on Natural Philosophy. "Thomson and Tait," as it's familiarly called ("T and T" was the authors' own formula), was planned soon after Lord Kelvin became acquainted with Tait, on the latter's appointment to his professorship in Edinburgh, and it was intended to be an all-comprehensive treatise on physical science, the foundations being laid in
kinematics and
dynamics, and the structure completed with the properties of
matter,
heat,
light,
electricity and
magnetism. But the literary partnership ceased in about eighteen years, when only the first portion of the plan had been completed, because each of the members felt he could work to better advantage separately than jointly. The friendship, however, endured for the twenty-three years which yet remained of Tait's life.
Tait collaborated with
Balfour Stewart in the
Unseen Universe, which was followed by
Paradoxical Philosophy. It was in his 1875 review of
The Unseen Universe, that William James first put forth his
Will to Believe Doctrine. Among Tait's articles may be mentioned those which he wrote for the ninth edition of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica on Light, Mechanics, Quaternions, Radiation and Thermodynamics, besides the biographical notices of Hamilton and Clerk Maxwell.
Chronological order of books
Private life
Tait was an enthusiastic
golfer and, of his seven children, two,
Frederick Guthrie Tait (1870-1900) and John Guthrie Tait (1861-1945) went on to become gifted amateur champions. Tait himself had, in
1891, invoked the
Magnus effect to explain the influence of
spin on the flight of a
golf ball.
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