Peter Guthrie Tait Quotes

Peter Guthrie Tait FRSE was a Scottish mathematical physicist and early pioneer in thermodynamics. He is best known for the mathematical physics textbook Treatise on Natural Philosophy, which he co-wrote with Kelvin, and his early investigations into knot theory,

His work on knot theory contributed to the eventual formation of topology as a mathematical discipline. His name is known in graph theory mainly for Tait's conjecture. He is also one of the namesakes of the Tait-Kneser theorem on osculating circles. Wikipedia  

✵ 28. April 1831 – 4. July 1901
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Peter Guthrie Tait: 3   quotes 0   likes

Famous Peter Guthrie Tait Quotes

“[Examiners] spend their lives in discovering which pages of a text-book a man ought to read and which will not be likely to 'pay.”

in an address to the University of Edinburgh graduates, as quoted by [Cargill Gilston Knott, Life and scientific work of Peter Guthrie Tait, Cambridge University Press, 1911, 11]

“Oh, that's nothing – I could coach a coal scuttle to be Senior Wrangler.”

when complimented about coaching his one pupil scoring higher than his rival's pupils at Peterhouse Tripos, as quoted by [Cargill Gilston Knott, Life and scientific work of Peter Guthrie Tait, Cambridge University Press, 1911, http://books.google.com/books?id=PSU9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA11, 11]

“The next grand extensions of mathematical physics will, in all likelihood, be furnished by quaternions.”

in Note on a Quaternion Transformation , Communication read on Monday, 6th April, 1863, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1866), p. 117.

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