Professor Tait

Professor Tait on the reality of force.

Michael Tait: Research Statement

My research uses algebraic and geometric methods to prove theorems in extremal combinatorics. Going the other way, I also use combinatorial methods to prove algebraic results. Algebraic methods are deeply embedded in my work and nearly all of my success in graph theoretic research has come from attacking purely combinatorial problems through the lens of algebra, combinatorial number theory, or ...

The Tait Flyping Conjecture

We announce a proof of the Tait flyping conjecture; the confirmation of this conjecture renders almost trivial the problem of deciding whether two given alternating link diagrams represent equivalent links. The proof of the conjecture also shows that alternating links have no "hidden" symmetries. In the nineteenth century, the celebrated physicist and knot tabulator P. G. Tait proposed the foll...

Lawson Tait, His Life and Work

lawson tait, his life and work By W. J. Stewart McKay, M.B., M.Ch., B.Sc , Bailllere, Tlndall & Cox,,London 1922. 578 pp. With 34 plates. Price 25s. net. This is a remarkable book. It is something much more than a mere life of Lawson Tait : it is a vigorous, well written and exceptionally interesting account of the origins and evolution of modern gynaecology and abdominal surgery. The portraits...

Tait in One Big Step

We present a Tait-style proof to show that a simple functional normaliser for a combinatory version of System T terminates. Using a technique pioneered by Bove and Capretta, we can implement the normaliser in total Type Theory. The main interest in our construction is methodological, it is an alternative to the usual small-step operational semantics on the one side and normalisation by evaluati...