(1886 – 1975) Physicist and Engineer

Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor OM FRS FRSE was born on 7th March 1886 in St John’s Wood. He was the eldest son of Edward Ingram and Margaret Taylor and the grandson of George and Mary Boole. As a child, he attended the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and from 1899 he would attend University College School. He left this in 1905 and went on to Trinity College Cambridge, from where he would graduate with a first-class degree in mathematics and physics in 1908.

Following his graduation, Taylor would remain at Trinity College thanks to a scholarship and, in 1910, a prize fellowship. Here he worked in the Cavendish Laboratory, where he would remain actively involved in scientific research until 1972. His first project, suggested by Sir Joseph Thompson, was to test the compatibility of the new idea of quantization of energy with the wave character of light when the intensity of the light is extremely small. In 1911 he was appointed to the Schuster readership in dynamical meteorology working on turbulent transfer processes in the friction layer of the earth's atmosphere. In 1913 he worked as a meteorologist on the ice patrol vessel Scotia where, following the sinking of the RMS Titanic, he observed the path of icebergs in the north Atlantic.

During the First World War, he worked at the Royal Aircraft Factory, later Royal Aircraft Establishment, where he helped put the design and military operation of aeroplanes on a scientific basis. In 1915 he worked would win the Adams Prize for his work on turbulent motion in fluids and in the same year gained his pilot’s certificate. Following the end of the War, he would return to Cambridge.

In 1919 Taylor continued his work at Trinity College on oceanography and turbulence, as well as being a Fellow and lecturer in mathematics. The same year also saw him elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1923 he was appointed to the Royal Society Yarrow research professorship and chose to undertake this work at the Cavendish Laboratory. In 1936 he presented a series of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on ships, one of which became the first to be televised.

During the Second World War, he would work as a consultant on a number of different projects mostly relating to blast waves and underwater explosions. In 1944 he would travel to the USA as part of the British contingent to the Manhattan Project. As part of this, he would be present at the Trinity Test in the following year and he would write a pair of papers on the estimated yield of the explosion.

Following the end of the conflict, he would continue his research, which included work for the Aeronautical Research Committee on the development of supersonic aircraft. In 1952 he would officially retire but continued to research various subjects at the Cavendish Laboratory. In 1969 he would publish his final research paper having produced 200 throughout his career. In 1972 he suffered a severe stroke that would see the end of his research.

Throughout his career, Geoffrey Taylor would receive several honorary degrees, including ones from Oxford in 1938 and Cambridge in 1957, and was elected to several societies related to his work. As well as this he received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society in 1944 and the US Medal of Merit in 1946. He was also appointed Knight Bachelor in the 1944 Birthday Honours.

On 27th June 1975, he would die in Cambridge following a second stroke.