Life and Scientific Work of Peter Guthrie Tait - School of Mathematics ...

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'.
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 Tait'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
' It is interesting to note that the first and second memoirs were translated into
Russian by Captain J. Gerebiateffe and published with annotations expanding Tait's mathe-
matical processes in the Russian Review of Artillery (1894),