Peter Tait (physicist)
Peter Guthrie Tait ( born April 28, 1831 in Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland, † July 4, 1901 in Edinburgh) was a Scottish physicist.
Life and work
Tait grew after he had lost his father at age 6, in Edinburgh by his uncle John Ronaldson, one for the sciences enthusiastic bankers. In 1841 he joined the Edinburgh Academy, the James Clerk Maxwell visited simultaneously a class above him. Tait was a very good student, both in the classical languages as well as in mathematics, even before Maxwell where he got in 1846 a school prize ( the following year won Maxwell ). In 1847 he visited together with Maxwell the University of Edinburgh, but moved in 1848 to Cambridge, where he was Senior Wrangler in the Tripos in 1852. In the same year he won the Smith Prize. Tait was a Fellow of Peterhouse at Cambridge University and began to write a book on dynamics, which appeared in 1856. In 1854 he became professor of mathematics at Queens College in Belfast. There began his interest in quaternions, which he began a correspondence with their inventor, William Rowan Hamilton, with whom he became friends. As a result, Tait was in numerous articles and several books to an influential proponent of the application of the theory of quaternions in physics. Later, he was so at odds with Oliver Heaviside and Josiah Willard Gibbs, both proponents of the now commonly used vector concept. From Tait comes the present form of the nabla symbol as an upside-down Delta.
In 1860 he took over the Chair of Theoretical Physics (then called on the basis of Newton's major work Natural Philosophy), to which he was appointed in competition with Maxwell, because it was estimated to be more vigorous appearance and his teaching skills higher. A well-known textbook of the 19th century was that of Tait along with William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) Treatise of Natural Philosophy from 1867 (planned were several volumes, only the first was published ), in which they appear in the energy concept and the principle of conservation of energy the center set. Tait had a great influence on the works of Hermann Helmholtz, in particular his work on vortex movement of 1858, which translated Tait. Tait tested Helmholtz ' theory (in particular the stability of the Rings at near- collisions) with smoke rings, and Thomson was so impressed that in him the idea arose to describe atoms as ring systems with knots. This quaint from today's perspective idea led to the fact that Tait began to deal with knot theory. 1876-1877 he published several works in which he claimed the number of crossings classified in two-dimensional projection ( up to 7 crossings ), in collaboration with Thomas Kirkman which he extended to up to 11 crossings in 1883. Nodes Tait checked the sent to him by Kirkman tables to equivalent nodes using intuitive methods, which later proved to be correct turned out (for the act submitted to it tables to 10 crossings, at Kirkman's table with 11 crossings, which contained 1581 nodes, he gave up ). Tait also wrote in 1896 a work on the flight path of golf balls (his son Frederick was a leading amateur golfer, he was a volunteer with the Black Watch in the Boer War 1900) and dealt with the kinetic theory of gases.
Since 1860, Tait was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, whose secretary he was from 1879 to 1901. He was never a member of the Royal Society in London, but he received the Royal Medal in 1886.