2 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



as a towering peak to one may seem but an ordinary eminence to another. 

 Nevertheless, incomplete and historically partial though it must be, a sketch 

 of the career of a leader of scientific thought who lived his strenuous 

 mental life through this formative time cannot be without its value as 

 a contribution to the history of the growth of ideas. 



Such a one, pre-eminently, was Professor Tail of Edinburgh University. 

 He was the personal friend of Hamilton, Andrews, Stokes, Joule, Kelvin, 

 Maxwell, Stewart, Helmholtz, Cayley, Sylvester to name a few of the more 

 outstanding of those who have passed away. These contemporaries were to 

 him personalities and not mere writers of papers or of books. He got much 

 from them and he gave much to them. As a historian of contemporary 

 developments he takes high rank ; and to him we owe in a manner which 

 can only now be clearly recognised the very existence of Thomson and 

 Tail's Natural Philosophy and of Hamilton's Elements of Quaternions, 



In tracing his career I have received every help possible from 

 Mrs Tait and the other members of the family. My own recollections of 

 his tales of earlier days have been corroborated and supplemented by 

 evidence from letters written contemporaneously with the events they 

 describe. His Scrap Book, a fascinating collection of all kinds of letters and 

 cuttings bearing upon his own work and the work of others that touched 

 him closely, has been of unique value. 



I feel it a great honour to have had confided to me the privilege of 

 preparing this memorial volume. My sole endeavour has been to give a 

 faithful picture of Professor Tait as teacher, investigator, author, and friend. 

 To this end I have reproduced a few of his more popular scientific articles 

 as well as numerous quotations from letters, addresses, and reviews. 



The picturesque account of the St Andrews holiday life of Professor 

 Tait is from the pen of Mr John L. Low, the author of F. G. Tait, a 

 Record, being the biography of Professor Tail's soldier son, Lieutenant in 

 the Black Watch, who lost his life in the South African War. 



