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For a British mathematician whose speciality was fluid flow, Geoffrey Taylor
lived an action-packed life. He turned to meteorology, was drawn into
investigating the sinking of the Titanic, undertook pioneering research on
powered flight, and was asked to calculate the shape of the blast wave of an
atomic bomb explosion (he subsequently witnessed the tests in New Mexico). He
was knighted for his contributions to science and appointed to the Order of
Merit. “G. I.”, as he was widely known, was one of the greatest physical
scientists of the century. He could turn his mathematical ability to the
distribution of icebergs as easily as to the swimming of spermatazoa. And he was
one of the band of scientists for whom the Second World War was an exercise in
applied physics on a vast scale. George Batchelor skilfully draws together the
threads in The Life and Legacy of G. I. Taylor (Cambridge University Press,
£45/$75, ISBN 0 521 46121 9).