Page:Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century.djvu/45

first published in 1856, and has gone through a number of editions, Steele's name remaining on the title page. Two years after graduation he was appointed professor of mathematics in the Queen's College, Belfast. Then, if not before, he became acquainted with Andrews, the professor of chemistry and vice-president of the college; a skillful experimenter, famous for his researches on the nature of ozone and on the compression of gases. It is doubtful whether Tait did any experimenting under Forbes at Edinburgh; Andiews appears to have been his guide and master in physical manipulation.

In 1853, one year after Tait's appointment at Belfast, Hamilton published his Lectures on Quaternions. The young professor had a great power of doing work; in the day time he taught mathematics and experimented with Andrews; and at night he studied the new method of Quaternions. He soon mastered it sufficiently to be able to write papers on it, which, lie published in the Messenger of Mathematics and the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics and eventually he planned a volume of examples on Quaternions. There were, however, to Tait's mind numerous obscure points in the theory, and to elucidate them he wished to correspond with Hamilton directly. His friend Andrews wrote to Hamilton asking the favor; in this way a correspondence originated which was kept up till the death of Hamilton. In 1859 Hamilton met Tait at the British Association meeting at Aberdeen, and Tait introduced another disciple, Clerk Maxwell, then professor of physics at Aberdeen. The year following Professor Forbes resigned the chair of physics in Edinburgh University; the former schoolmates, Tait and Maxwell, were both candidates; the choice of the electors fell on the energetic professor of mathematics at Belfast. This contest, it is pleasant to say, did not diminish the friendship between the two mathematicians. In his letter Tait used the symbol ${\frac {dp}{dt}}$ for Maxwell, because in thermodynamics there is the equation ${\frac {dp}{dt}}={\mbox{J.C.M.}}$ Maxwell addressed one of his odes to Tait as "The chief musician upon Nabla."