SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY 25 



for a lengthened period a Director of the Scottish Provident Institution. 

 The Directors of this Company were divided into two standing Committees 

 of Agency and of Investment. Tait naturally served on the former; but he 

 was never happier than when engaged with James Meikle, the well-known 

 actuary, in solving actuarial problems. The two men had, each of them, the 

 greatest confidence in the other's capacity. Very often after Board meetings, 

 Meikle would way-lay the Professor and draw him into his sanctum to discuss 

 some knotty question. 



The last heavy piece of mathematical investigation which fascinated 

 Tait was the Kinetic Theory of Gases. Prompted by Kelvin, he wrote four 

 important memoirs which by simplifying the mathematical treatment have 

 greatly helped to clear up the difficulties inherent to the theory 1 . 



Before this work was well off his hands he was mastering the intricacies 

 of the flight of the golf ball and planning experiments in impact and 

 ballistics to elucidate some of the problems requiring solution. Not only 

 did Tait in the end solve the main problem but it was he who first discovered 

 that there was a problem to be solved. For hundreds of years Scotsmen had 

 driven their balls over the historic links of St Andrews, Musselburgh, and 

 Prestwick ; but no one had ever put the question to himself, why does a well 

 driven ball "carry" so far and remain so long in the air? The adept knew 

 by experience that it was not a question of mere muscle, but largely of 

 knack. It was reserved for Tait, however, to find in it a dynamical 

 problem capable of exact statement and approximate solution. From 

 his earliest initiation into Scotland's Royal Game, he began to form 

 theories and make experiments with different forms of club and various 

 kinds of ball ; but not until late in the eighties did he begin to get at the 

 heart of the mystery. Golf had now become a popular British sport, 

 played wherever the English speech was prevalent ; and Tail's second 

 youngest son, Freddie, was rapidly coming to the front as one of the most 

 brilliant of amateur golfers. While the son was surprising and delighting 

 the world by his strong straight driving, his remarkable recoveries from 

 almost unplayable "lies," and his brilliant all-round play with every kind of 

 club, the father was applying his mathematical and physical knowledge to 

 explain the prolonged flight of the golf ball. The practical golfer at first 



1 It is interesting to note that the first and second memoirs were translated into 

 Russian by Captain J. Gerebiateffe and published with annotations expanding Tail's mathe- 

 matical processes in the Russian Review of Artillery (1894). 



T. 4 



