George Biddell Airy

Quotes

• “"On the Diffraction of an Object-glass with Circular Aperture" read (Nov. 24, 1834) Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (1835) Vol. 5, p. 283.”
• “In the hands of Science and indomitable energy, results the most gigantic and absorbing may be wrought out by skilful combinations of acknowledged data and the simplest means.”
• “[T]his Fifth Edition is required to meet the demand of a somewhat wider class of students than those for whom the Lectures were originally intended. ...Mr. Stirling has been at liberty to prepare the modifications and additions ...”
• “In the application of the ordinary principles of geometry and trigonometry to such Astronomical measures... it may sometimes be expedient to resolve the process into several successive steps, and these steps may perhaps require different kinds of treatment. But... all are simple and within ordinary comprehension, and the only complexity arises from the circumstance that the student may find it necessary to have a clear view of several such steps at once...”
• “I had long wished for some opportunity of endeavouring to explain... the principles on which the instruments of an Observatory are constructed, (omitting all details, so far as they are merely subsidiary,) and the principles on which the observations made with these instruments are treated...Such an opportunity appeared to present itself in the course of Lectures which I engaged to give to the Members of the and their friends.”
• “[H]ow much of the fundamentals of Astronomy may be obtained with the coarsest observation with the unaided eye. ...the science which is thus obtained by personal observations is vastly superior (as far as it goes) to that which is obtained by any other method. ...The knowledge ...inferred from actual personal observation carries with it a degree of reality and certainty, as the veritable science of external objects, which nothing else can give.”

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Key facts

Born

( 1801-07-27 ) 27 July 1801, Alnwick , Northumberland, England

Died

2 January 1892 (1892-01-02) (aged 90), Greenwich , London, England

Citizenship

British

Education

Colchester Royal Grammar School

Alma mater

Trinity College, Cambridge

Known for

Seventh Astronomer Royal , See full list

Awards

Smith's Prize (1823) , Copley Medal (1831) , RAS Gold Medal (1833, 1846) , Lalande Prize (1834) , Royal Medal (1845) , Albert Medal (1876)

Fields

Astronomy , mathematics

Institutions

Trinity College, Cambridge , Royal Society

Academic advisors

George Peacock

Preceded by

John Pond

Succeeded by

William Christie

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Image

George Biddell Airy.jpg

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