G. I. Taylor
Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor | |
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Wave theory | |
Academic advisors | J. J. Thomson[1][2] |
Doctoral students | George Batchelor Philip Drazin Albert E. Green Francis Bretherton Rosa M. Morris Stewart Turner |
Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor
Early life and education
Taylor was born in
Taylor read mathematics and physics at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1905 to 1908. He won several scholarships and prizes at Cambridge, one of which enabled him to study under J. J. Thomson.[4]
Career and research
Taylor published his first paper while he was still an undergraduate. In it, he showed that interference of visible light produced fringes even with extremely weak light sources.[5] The interference effects were produced with light from a gas light, attenuated through a series of dark glass plates, diffracting around a sewing needle. Three months were required to produce a sufficient exposure of the photographic plate. The paper does not mention quanta of light (photons) and does not reference Einstein's 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect, but today the result can be interpreted by saying that less than one photon on average was present at a time. Once it became widely accepted in around 1927 that the electromagnetic field was quantized, Taylor's experiment began to be presented in pedagogical treatments as evidence that interference effects with light cannot be interpreted in terms of one photon interfering with another photon—that, in fact, a single photon's probability amplitudes do interfere by going through both slits of a double-slit apparatus. Modern understanding of the subject has shown that the conditions in Taylor's experiment were not sufficient to demonstrate this, because the light source was not a single-photon source, but the experiment was reproduced in 1986 using a single-photon source, and the same result was obtained.[6]
He followed this up with work on shock waves, winning a Smith's Prize.[7]: 43 In 1910 he was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College, and the following year he was appointed to a meteorology post, becoming Reader in Dynamical Meteorology. His work on turbulence in the atmosphere led to the publication of "Turbulent motion in fluids",[8] which won him the Adams Prize in 1915.[9] In 1913 Taylor served as a meteorologist aboard the Ice Patrol vessel Scotia, where his observations formed the basis of his later work on a theoretical model of mixing of the air.[4]
At the outbreak of
After the war Taylor returned to Trinity and worked on an application of turbulent flow to
In 1934, Taylor, roughly contemporaneously with
In 1936 he presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, on "Ships".[12] One of these, on "why ships roll in a rough sea", was the first RI Christmas Lecture to be televised, by the BBC.[12][13]
Manhattan Project
During World War II, Taylor again applied his expertise to military problems such as the propagation of blast waves, studying both waves in air and underwater explosions.[4]
Taylor was sent to the United States in 1944–1945 as part of the British delegation to the Manhattan Project. At Los Alamos, Taylor helped solve implosion instability problems in the development of atomic weapons, particularly the plutonium bomb used at Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.[14][15]
In 1944 he also received his knighthood and the Copley Medal from the Royal Society. He was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences the following year.[16]
Taylor was present at the Trinity nuclear test, July 16, 1945, as part of General Leslie Groves' "VIP List" of 10 people who observed the test from Compania Hill, about 20 miles (32 km) northwest of the shot tower. By coincidence, Joan Hinton, another direct descendant of the mathematician George Boole, had been working on the same project and witnessed the event in an unofficial capacity. The cousins met at the time but later followed different paths. Joan, strongly opposed to nuclear weapons, defected to Mao's China, while Taylor maintained that political policy was not within the remit of the scientist.[17]
In 1950, he published two papers estimating the yield of the explosion using the
Later life
Taylor continued his research after the war, serving on the
Between the ages of 78 and 83, Taylor wrote six papers on electrohydrodynamics. In this work he returned to his interest in electrical activity in thunderstorms, as jets of conducting liquid motivated by electrical fields. The cone from which such jets are observed is called the Taylor cone, after him. He went on to publish two more papers, on additional topics, in 1971 and 1973. In 1972 D. H. MIchael read Taylor's paper, on making holes in a thin sheet of liquid, at the 13th International Conferences for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in Moscow. Taylor had suffered a stroke and could not attend. He had presented at every one of the previous conferences.[11]
Aspects of Taylor's life often found expression in his work. His over-riding interest in the movement of air and water, and by extension his studies of the movement of unicellular marine creatures and of weather, were related to his lifelong love of sailing. In the 1930s he invented the 'CQR' anchor, which was both stronger and more manageable than any in use, and which was used for all sorts of small craft including seaplanes.[21]
Personal life
Taylor married Grace Stephanie Frances Ravenhill, a school teacher in 1925. They stayed together until Stephanie's death in 1965. Taylor suffered a severe stroke in 1972 which effectively put an end to his work. He died in Cambridge in 1975.[11] He is buried in the churchyard of St Edward King and Martyr, Cambridge.
Awards
Taylor received many awards and honours.[11]
- Theodore von Kármán Prize in applied mathematics (1972), Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
- Theodore von Karman Medal in engineering mechanics (1969), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
- A. A. Griffith Medal and Prize (1969), Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining[22]
- Order of Merit (14 July 1969), Monarch of the United Kingdom[11][23]
- Franklin Medal (1962), Franklin Institute[24]
- Kelvin Gold Medal (1959), Institution of Electrical Engineers[25]
- Timoshenko Medal (1958), American Society of Mechanical Engineers[26]
- De Morgan Medal (1956), London Mathematical Society[27]
- Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1956)[28]
- International Member of the American Philosophical Society (1955)[29]
- Wilhelm Exner Medal (1954), Austrian Trade Association (Österreichischer Gewerbeverein)[30][31]
- Symons Gold Medal (1951), Royal Meteorological Society[32]
- Knight Bachelor (1944), Monarch of the United Kingdom[33]
- Copley Medal (1944), Royal Society[34]
- Royal Medal (1933), Royal Society[35]
- Bakerian Medal (1923), Royal Society[36]
- FRS (1919)[11]
- Adams Prize (1915), University of Cambridge[37]
- Smith's Prize (1910), University of Cambridge[38]
References
- ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "G. I. Taylor", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- ^ G. I. Taylor at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ISSN 0315-0860. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
- ^ ISSN 0066-4189.
- ^ G.I. Taylor, Interference fringes with feeble light, Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 15, 114-115 (1909)
- ^ Grangier, Roger, and Aspect, "Experimental evidence for a photon anticorrelation effect on a beamsplitter," Europhys. Lett. 1 (1986) 173
- ISBN 0-521-46121-9
- S2CID 121321848.
- ^ "About | Adams Prize". University of Cambridge. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
- S2CID 55747352.
- ^ JSTOR 769751.
- ^ a b "Royal Institution Lecture". Radio Times (690): 94. 20 December 1936.
- ^ "Missing Christmas Lectures". Royal Institution. Retrieved 8 January 2022.
- S2CID 29562158. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
- ^ "Geoffrey Taylor". Atomic Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
- ^ "Geoffrey Taylor". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ISBN 9781782051855.
- S2CID 120265776.
- ISBN 9780126045857.
- S2CID 97372019.
- ^ Taylor, G. I., The Holding Power of Anchors April 1934
- ISBN 9780904357783.
- ISBN 978-1-349-12731-3.
- ^ "Geoffrey Ingram Taylor". The Franklin Institute. 15 January 2014. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
- ISSN 2054-0574.
- ^ "Timoshenko Medal". American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
- ^ "List of LMS prize winners". London Mathematical Society.
- ^ "Geoffrey Ingram Taylor". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ^ "Geoffrey Taylor". Wilhelm Exner Medaillen Stiftung. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
- ISBN 978-3-662-55770-9.
- S2CID 42179870.
- ^ "No. 36544". The London Gazette (Supplement). 2 June 1944. p. 2566.
- S2CID 4095669.
- ^ "Papers and correspondence of Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor, 1886-1975 - Archives Hub". Trinity College Archives, University of Cambridge. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
- ^ "Award winners : Bakerian Lecture". Royal Society.
- ^ "About | Adams Prize". University of Cambridge. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
- ^ Tanner, J.R. (1917). The historical register of the University of Cambridge, being a supplement to the Calendar with a record of University offices, honours and distinctions to the year 1910. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 301.