Peter Guthrie Tait

Peter Guthrie Tait was a Scottish mathematical physicist and early pioneer in thermodynamics, born in Dalkeith on 28 April 1831, the only son of John Tait, secretary to the 5th Duke of Buccleuch. He was educated at Dalkeith Grammar School and Edinburgh Academy, where he began a lifelong friendship with James Clerk Maxwell, and he studied mathematics and physics at the University of Edinburgh before going to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he graduated as senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman in 1852. He took up the professorship of mathematics at Queen's College, Belfast, where he joined Thomas Andrews in researches on the density of ozone. He is best known for the textbook Treatise on Natural Philosophy, which he co-wrote with Lord Kelvin, and for his early investigations into knot theory, which contributed to the eventual formation of topology as a mathematical discipline. Tait's conjecture on cubic graphs bears his name.