a62 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



The following extracts are from Tait's account of Maxwell's work in 

 Nature, January 29, 1880: 



At the instance of Sir W. Thomson, Mr Lockyer, and others I proceed to give an 

 account of Clerk Maxwell's work, necessarily brief, but I hope sufficient to let even 

 the non-mathematical reader see how very great were his contributions to modern 

 science. I have the less hesitation in undertaking this work that I have been intimately 

 acquainted with him since we were schoolboys together. 



If the title of mathematician be restricted (as it too commonly is) to those who 

 possess peculiarly ready mastery over symbols, whether they try to understand the 

 significance of each step or no, Clerk Maxwell was not, and certainly never attempted 

 to be, in the foremost rank of mathematicians. He was slow in "writing out," and 

 avoided as far as he could the intricacies of analysis. He preferred always to have 

 before him a geometrical or physical representation of the problem in which he was 

 engaged, and to take all his steps with the aid of this : afterwards, when necessary, 

 translating them into symbols. In the comparative paucity of symbols in many of 

 his great papers, and in the way in which, when wanted, they seem to grow full-blown 

 from pages of ordinary text, his writings resemble much those of Sir William Thomson, 

 which in early life he had with great wisdom chosen as a model. 



There can be no doubt that in this habit, of constructing a mental representation 

 of every problem, lay one of the chief secrets of his wonderful success as an investigator. 

 To this were added an extraordinary power of penetration, and an altogether unusual 

 amount of patient determination. The clearness of his mental vision was quite on a 

 par with that of Faraday ; and in this (the true) sense of the word he was a 

 mathematician of the highest order. 



But the rapidity of his thinking, which he could not control, was such as to 

 destroy, except for the very highest class of students, the value of his lectures. His 

 books and his written addresses (always gone over twice in MS) are models of clear 

 and precise exposition ; but his extempore lectures exhibited in a manner most aggra- 

 vating to the listener the extraordinary fertility of his imagination. 



Clerk Maxwell spent the years 1847-50 at the University of Edinburgh, without 

 keeping the regular course for a degree. He was allowed to work during this period, 

 without assistance or supervision, in the Laboratories of Natural Philosophy and of 

 Chemistry : and he thus experimentally taught himself much which other men have 

 to learn with great difficulty from lectures or books. His reading was very extensive. 

 The records of the University Library show that he carried home for study, during 

 these years, such books as Fourier's Thforie de la Clialeur, Monge's Gtome'trie Descriptive, 

 Newton's Optics, Willis' Principles of Mechanism, Cauchy's Calcul Difftrentiel, Taylor's 

 Scientific Memoirs, and others of a very high order. These were read through, not 

 merely consulted. Unfortunately no list is kept of the books consulted in the Library. 

 One result of this period of steady work consists in two elaborate papers, printed in 

 the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The first (dated 1849), "On the 

 Theory of Rolling Curves," is a purely mathematical treatise, supplied with an immense 

 collection of very elegant particular examples. The second (1850) is "On the 

 Equilibrium of Elastic Solids." Considering the age of the writer at the time, this 



