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"The life of Airy was essentially that of a hard-working business man, and differed from that of other hard-working people only in the quality and variety of his work. It was not an exciting life, but it was full of interest..." Wilfred Airy

Sir George Biddell Airy (1801-1892) was an accomplished astronomer who spent only two years as Lucasian professor. Unfortunately the salary was not high enough to keep him as Lucasian professor. He moved to the Plumian Professor of Astronomy in 1828. In 1835 the position of Royal Astronomer was offered and accepted by Airy. He is therefore mainly remembered as the Astronomer Royal, the post in which he spent the major portion of his professional life.

During his professional life Airy was honored in many ways. He was elected to the Cambridge Philosophical Society after graduating from Cambridge in 1823. The Royal Society of London awarded him the Copley Medal in 1831 for his work in optics. The Royal Society of Edinburgh elected him to membership in the spring of 1835 and The French Academy elected him correspondent in the same year. In 1836, the Royal Society of London elected him to membership and awarded him the Royal Medal in 1845 for a paper on the Irish tides. Also in 1845, Airy was elected president of the Royal Astronomical Society. The Academy of Brussels elected him to membership in 1853. He was awarded the Prussian Order of Merit the following year. In 1862, Cambridge presented Airy with an honorary degree, the LL.D.¹ He was elected president of the Royal Society of London in 1871. The Institut de France nominated Airy to a Foreign Associate membership in 1872, when Sir John Herschel died, opening a position. Airy was also nominated in 1872 for a Grand Cross in the Imperial Order of the Rose of Brazil. He was knighted in July 1872 by the Queen, after having declined the offer on three previous occasions.

The tenth Lucasian professor, Airy had attended Trinity College Cambridge, graduating in 1823 as senior wrangler and winner of the Smith's Prize. He was elected a fellow the following year. He was sizar while at Cambridge.² In fact, were it not for the generosity of his uncle, he would not have been able to attend Cambridge.

He was examined in 1823 for the Smith's Prize by Professor Robert Woodhouse and Professor Thomas Turton, both of whom were Lucasian professors. On that date, Turton was the Lucasian professor, but three years later, Airy succeeded him.³ Airy defended his thesis publicly in Latin, won the title of senior wrangler, and passed the written and oral examinations of the tripos. He was well known for his abilities in Latin and ancient Greek, in addition to his extensive mathematical skills.⁴

Professor William Whewell alerted Airy in 1826 that Turton was leaving the Lucasian Chair, suggesting strongly that he compete for it. Joshua King, who acquired the chair in 1839, had made it clear that college tutors and assistant tutors were not eligible for the chair. The salary of an assistant tutor was 150 pounds and that of the Lucasian Chair only 99 pounds, so Airy had to make a serious decision. Professor George Peacock persuaded Airy that the value of holding the position overshadowed questions of money, so Airy competed for the chair.⁵ There were two other candidates, Dr. Edward French of Jesus College and Charles Babbage. French withdrew when Babbage stated he was about to start legal proceedings over the election. This seems to have begun the rivalry that Airy and Babbage continued for many years. Babbage became Lucasian professor two years later when Airy left the post for the Plumian Chair.

Woodhouse was the Plumian Professor of Astronomy when Professor Peacock intervened on Airy's behalf, suggesting that Woodhouse was not expected to live much longer and that Airy should succeed him. Airy announced his candidacy soon after Woodhouse died.⁶ He moved into the Plumian Professorship in 1828 and became the director of the Cambridge observatory. In 1835 he rose to the position of Astronomer Royal which he maintained for forty-six years.⁷

It was an unfortunate occurrence, that Airy had a long standing battle with Babbage.⁸ The struggle with Babbage was typical of the temperament of Airy, who was known for his sarcasm and somewhat caustic personality. Airy had started out winning in the battles with Babbage. The problems between the two flared again when, in 1832, there was a dispute over the quality of a telescope built in which Airy and Babbage were called in as experts. They stood on opposing sides and again Airy won and Babbage suffered damage to his career.

Ten years later while Babbage was trying to keep financial support from the government flowing to his projects, Airy wrote an opinion to the Chancellor of the Exchequer which stated that the Babbage's calculating engine was "worthless." Recently, the government had failed to compensate Airy for solving a problem for it in which he was able to provide a mechanical tabulation method while working on the larger problem of navigating iron ships. Airy took out his anger by preventing Babbage from receiving compensation by rendering this opinion. It was probably doubly satisfying for Airy to shut down the source of Babbage's funds as well as stop the government from progressing with the automation of calculations and record keeping. Unfortunately for England and the rest of the world, it delayed progress for an indefinite period of time.

In 1854, the conflict continued between the two during the "battle of the gauges" in England. There was a struggle over the standards for railroads, because two gauge sizes of track were in use, causing the expected problems of incompatibility. Airy championed the side of the narrow gauge and Babbage on the wide gauge. Again Airy won. Later, when Airy was Director of the Royal Observatory, in 1854, Babbage was a member of the Board of Visitors for the Observatory. The squabble this time was over Airy giving money and information to a researcher, both supplied by the British government. Airy came out ahead as usual.

One of the benefits of the Lucasian professorship was membership on the Board of Longitude which paid 100 pounds, as long as four meetings were attended.⁹ Airy was also an examiner for the Smith's Prize and gave lectures while holding the Chair. Combined with the 99 pounds paid from the Lucasian Chair, it was still not enough to support himself. To show the magnitude of the problem, Airy was paid 1000 pounds in 1855 as Astronomer Royal.

Airy published numerous papers concerning Cambridge and its history, professorships and religious issues. A few papers on tripos and the Smith's Prize were aimed at improving them. Airy spent the majority of his time and effort in astronomy, however, publishing an enormous number of books, papers and official reports. His published papers have been counted at 377 in addition to another 141 official reports and addresses.¹⁰ The publications span a 63 year period, averaging over eight papers per year, not counting books. He was a practical man, with his work directed at application, not theory. The following quote is taken from a letter he wrote after reviewing the tripos examinations for Cambridge in 1859:

"I have looked very carefully over the Examination Papers and think them on the whole very bad. They are utterly perverted by the insane love of Problems, and by the foolish importance given to wholly useless parts of Algebraic Geometry. For the sake of these, every Physical Subject and every useful application of pure mathematics are cut down or not mentioned."

Thus, the major portion of his work was practical in nature, addressing such tasks as determining the mass of the planet Jupiter and its period rotation, calculating the orbits of comets and cataloging the stars. His lifelong work covered the topics of numerical lunar theory, the transits of the planet Venus and eclipses. He was responsible for the production, as well as being the keeper, of records of official astronomical data by virtue of his position as Astronomer Royal. He even went back in history to correct existing records and to integrate the data into current records. He worked on an eclipse recorded by Thales of ancient Greece and old Chinese astronomical records.

He had made corrections to the records of the Royal Observatory while he was the Lucasian Professor. Airy was a stickler for detail and correctness. One of his papers was a report on corrections to the orbit of the moon from records dating from 1750 through 1830. Since computers at that time were not machines, but rather people doing calculations by hand, this effort was a tedious one. Airy's main work was in astronomy, but he was involved in many other areas including magnetism and horology. In the field of magnetism he offered methods to correct for compass readings in ships made of iron.

Airy suffered from astigmatism, and in 1825, designed the first eyeglasses to correct it. He published a paper called On a peculiar Defect in the Eye, and a mode of correcting it. The problem of astigmatism and its potential correction had been known since the time of Isaac Barrow, but Airy was the first to design lenses that worked. Everyone who has suffered from astigmatism since that time owes him a debt of gratitude for the corrective eyeglasses they wear.

Airy was interested in poetry, history, theology, antiquities, architecture, engineering, and geology.¹¹ He published papers on Caesar, including the location in Britain of his landing and departure. Airy was liberal in his views on religion in the sense that he was independent in his own interpretations of scripture. During his tenure at Cambridge there was a great deal of controversy on the issue of required religious tests for MA degree candidates. Eventually the requirements were dropped, and he was sympathetic to this development.¹² Airy was also a member of the faculty senate that voted to allow candidates for the medical degree to receive their degrees without professing loyalty to the Church of England.¹³ He also took the liberal viewpoint in 1834, when a major controversy broke out at Cambridge over the admission of Dissenters to the university.¹⁴

Another sign of Airy's religious views emerged when Calenso, a mathematician, and Bishop of Natal, was criticized for his writings on the Pentateuch. Airy wrote that he owed Calenso a debt for an intellectual stimulus for searching out the truth, even though he did not use it the same way as Calenso. In other words, even if he did not agree with Calenso's writing, he did agree with the method of analysis. Furthermore, there was the strong sense that one did not have to agree in all instances with the religious beliefs of others.¹⁵

In matters of personal devotion to religion and belief in God, Airy was most committed. He published numerous papers on religion. One paper, published in 1854, argued that the great Biblical Flood was a great flood of the Nile, not of the world.¹⁶ He also published several papers on the exodus of the Israelites. In a series of letters to Cambridge in which Airy was making suggestions to improve mathematical instruction, a few telling remarks revealed his attitudes toward religion. He expressed his belief that the college had two objectives. The first was to give religious instruction and the second to pursue science with no connection to religion. He believed that the master of a college should have taken holy orders.¹⁷ He appears to have been a religious man who expected clear boundaries between religion and science.

Footnotes

1. Sir George Biddell Airy, Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896), 251.
2. Airy, 27.
3. Airy, 40.
4. Alexander Macfarlane, ed.,"George Biddell Airy," in Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1919), 111.
5. Airy, 69.
6. Airy, 77.
7. Dictionary of National Biography.
8. Macfarlane, 111.
9. Airy, 72.
10. Dictionary of National Biography.
11. Airy, 10.
12. Macfarlane, 117.
13. Airy, 6.
14. Airy, 102.
15. Airy, 265.
16. Airy, 220.
17. Airy, 284.