TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “A change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed and takes place along the straight line in which that force is impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index T > Peter Guthrie Tait Quotes

Thumbnail of Peter Guthrie Tait (source)
Peter Guthrie Tait
(28 Apr 1831 - 4 Jul 1901)

Scottish physicist and mathematician.


Science Quotes by Peter Guthrie Tait (6 quotes)

If it were possible for a metaphysician to be a golfer, he might perhaps occasionally notice that his ball, instead of moving forward in a vertical plane (like the generality of projectiles, such as brickbats and cricket balls), skewed away gradually to the right. If he did notice it, his methods would naturally lead him to content himself with his caddies’s remark-“ye heeled that yin,” or “Ye jist sliced it.” … But a scientific man is not to be put off with such flimsy verbiage as that. He must know more. What is “Heeling”, what is “slicing”, and why would either operation (if it could be thoroughly carried out) send a ball as if to cover point, thence to long slip, and finally behind back-stop? These, as Falstaff said, are “questions to be asked.”
— Peter Guthrie Tait
In 'The Unwritten Chapter on Golf, Nature (1887), 36, 502.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Back (395)  |  Ball (64)  |  Behind (139)  |  Contentment (11)  |  Cricket (8)  |  Flimsy (2)  |  Forward (104)  |  Generality (45)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Golfer (3)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Himself (461)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Metaphysician (7)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Notice (81)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Operation (221)  |  Plane (22)  |  Point (584)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Projection (5)  |  Question (649)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Verbiage (3)  |  Vertical (4)  |  Why (491)

It is very desirable to have a word to express the Availability for work of the heat in a given magazine; a term for that possession, the waste of which is called Dissipation. Unfortunately the excellent word Entropy, which Clausius has introduced in this connexion, is applied by him to the negative of the idea we most naturally wish to express. It would only confuse the student if we were to endeavour to invent another term for our purpose. But the necessity for some such term will be obvious from the beautiful examples which follow. And we take the liberty of using the term Entropy in this altered sense ... The entropy of the universe tends continually to zero.
— Peter Guthrie Tait
Sketch of Thermodynamics (1868), 100-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Altered (32)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Availability (10)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Call (781)  |  Rudolf Clausius (9)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Connection (171)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Desire (212)  |  Dissipation (2)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Example (98)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Express (192)  |  Expression (181)  |  Follow (389)  |  Heat (180)  |  Idea (881)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Invention (400)  |  Liberty (29)  |   Magazine (26)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Negative (66)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Possession (68)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Sense (785)  |  Student (317)  |  Tend (124)  |  Term (357)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Universe (900)  |  Waste (109)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Zero (38)

Nothing can he learned as to the physical world save by observation and experiment, or by mathematical deductions from data so obtained.
— Peter Guthrie Tait
From Heat (1884), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Data (162)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Physical World (30)

The flights of the imagination which occur to the pure mathematician are in general so much better described in his formulas than in words, that it is not remarkable to find the subject treated by outsiders as something essentially cold and uninteresting— … the only successful attempt to invest mathematical reasoning with a halo of glory—that made in this section by Prof. Sylvester—is known to a comparative few, …
— Peter Guthrie Tait
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science (1871), Nature Vol. 4, 271,
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Better (493)  |  Cold (115)  |  Comparative (14)  |  Describe (132)  |  Essentially (15)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flight (101)  |  Formula (102)  |  General (521)  |  Glory (66)  |  Halo (7)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Invest (20)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Occur (151)  |  Outsider (7)  |  Prof (2)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Section (11)  |  Something (718)  |  Subject (543)  |  Successful (134)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Treat (38)  |  Uninteresting (9)  |  Word (650)

We are quite ignorant of the condition of energy in bodies generally. We know how much gas goes in, and how much comes out, and know whether at entrance and exit it is in the form of heat or of work. That is all.
— Peter Guthrie Tait
Sketch of Thermodynamics (1877), 137.
Science quotes on:  |  Condition (362)  |  Energy (373)  |  Entrance (16)  |  Form (976)  |  Gas (89)  |  Heat (180)  |  Heat Engine (4)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Know (1538)  |  Work (1402)

Your printers have made but one blunder,
Correct it instanter, and then for the thunder!
We’ll see in a jiffy if this Mr S[pencer]
Has the ghost of a claim to be thought a good fencer.
To my vision his merits have still seemed to dwindle,
Since I have found him allied with the great Dr T[yndall]
While I have, for my part, grown cockier and cockier,
Since I found an ally in yourself, Mr L[ockyer]
And am always, in consequence, thoroughly willin’,
To perform in the pages of Nature's M[acmillan].
— Peter Guthrie Tait
Postcard from Tait to Lockyer, editor of Nature, cited by H. Dingle, Nature (1969), 224, 829.
Science quotes on:  |  Blunder (21)  |  Claim (154)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Correction (42)  |  Dwindle (6)  |  Fencer (2)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer (15)  |  Merit (51)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Page (35)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Printer (2)  |  See (1094)  |  Herbert Spencer (37)  |  Still (614)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thunder (21)  |  John Tyndall (53)  |  Vision (127)  |  Willingness (10)



Quotes by others about Peter Guthrie Tait (5)

That small word “Force,” they make a barber's block,
Ready to put on
Meanings most strange and various, fit to shock
Pupils of Newton....
The phrases of last century in this
Linger to play tricks—
Vis viva and Vis Mortua and Vis Acceleratrix:
Those long-nebbed words that to our text books still
Cling by their titles,
And from them creep, as entozoa will,
Into our vitals.
But see! Tait writes in lucid symbols clear
One small equation;
And Force becomes of Energy a mere
Space-variation.
'Report on Tait's Lecture on Force:— B.A., 1876', reproduced in Bruce Clarke, Energy Forms: Allegory and Science in the Era of Classical Thermodynamics (2001), 19. Maxwell's verse was inspired by a paper delivered at the British Association (B.A.. He was satirizing a “considerable cofusion of nomenclature” at the time, and supported his friend Tait's desire to establish a redefinition of energy on a thermnodynamic basis.
Science quotes on:  |  Barber (5)  |  Become (821)  |  Block (13)  |  Book (413)  |  Century (319)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Clinging (3)  |  Creep (15)  |  Creeping (4)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equation (138)  |  Fit (139)  |  Force (497)  |  Last (425)  |  Linger (14)  |  Lingering (2)  |  Long (778)  |  Lucid (9)  |  Lucidity (7)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Play (116)  |  Poem (104)  |  Pupil (62)  |  See (1094)  |  Shock (38)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Still (614)  |  Strange (160)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Title (20)  |  Trick (36)  |  Variation (93)  |  Various (205)  |  Vital (89)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Write (250)

In despair, I offer your readers their choice of the following definitions of entropy. My authorities are such books and journals as I have by me at the moment.
(a) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy of a system which cannot be converted into work by even a perfect heat engine.—Clausius.
(b) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy which can be converted into work by a perfect engine.—Maxwell, following Tait.
(c) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy which is not converted into work by our imperfect engines.—Swinburne.
(d) Entropy (in a volume of gas) is that which remains constant when heat neither enters nor leaves the gas.—W. Robinson.
(e) Entropy may be called the ‘thermal weight’, temperature being called the ‘thermal height.’—Ibid.
(f) Entropy is one of the factors of heat, temperature being the other.—Engineering.
I set up these bald statement as so many Aunt Sallys, for any one to shy at.
[Lamenting a list of confused interpretations of the meaning of entropy, being hotly debated in journals at the time.]
In The Electrician (9 Jan 1903).
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Choice (114)  |  Rudolf Clausius (9)  |  Constant (148)  |  Converted (2)  |  Definition (238)  |  Despair (40)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Factor (47)  |  Gas (89)  |  Heat (180)  |  Heat Engine (4)  |  Height (33)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Intrinsic (18)  |  Journal (31)  |  Leave (138)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Moment (260)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Portion (86)  |  Remain (355)  |  Set (400)  |  Shy (5)  |  Statement (148)  |  System (545)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weight (140)  |  Work (1402)

Tait once urged the advantage of Quaternions on Cayley (who never used them), saying: “You know Quaternions are just like a pocket-map.” “That may be,” replied Cayley, “but you’ve got to take it out of your pocket, and unfold it, before it’s of any use.” And he dismissed the subject with a smile.
In Life of Lord Kelvin (1910), 1137.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Dismiss (12)  |  Know (1538)  |  Map (50)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Never (1089)  |  Pocket (11)  |  Quaternion (9)  |  Reply (58)  |  Say (989)  |  Smile (34)  |  Subject (543)  |  Unfold (15)  |  Urge (17)  |  Use (771)

Tait dubbed Maxwell dp/dt, for according to thermodynamics dp/dt = JCM (where C denotes Carnot’s function) the initials of (J.C.) Maxwell’s name. On the other hand Maxwell denoted Thomson by T and Tait by T'; so that it became customary to quote Thomson and Tait’s Treatise on Natural Philosophy as T and T'.
In Bibliotheca Mathematica (1903), 3, 187. As cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 178. [Note: Thomson is William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin. —Webmaster.]
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Lazare-Nicolas-Marguerite Carnot (4)  |  Customary (18)  |  Function (235)  |  Initial (17)  |  Baron William Thomson Kelvin (74)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nickname (3)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Quote (46)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Treatise (46)

In future times Tait will be best known for his work in the quaternion analysis. Had it not been for his expositions, developments and applications, Hamilton’s invention would be today, in all probability, a mathematical curiosity.
In Bibliotheca Mathematica (1903), 3, 189. As cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 178. [Note: Tait is Peter Guthrie Tait; Hamilton is Sir William Rowan Hamilton. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Application (257)  |  Best (467)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Development (441)  |  Exposition (16)  |  Future (467)  |  Sir William Rowan Hamilton (10)  |  Invention (400)  |  Known (453)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Probability (135)  |  Quaternion (9)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)


See also:

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.