Sir George Biddell Airy (; 27 July 18012 January 1892) was an English mathematician and astronomer, as well as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1826 to 1828 and the seventh Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the Earth, a method of solution of two-dimensional problems in solid mechanics and, in his role as Astronomer Royal, establishing Greenwich as the location of the prime meridian.
Biography Airy was born at Alnwick in Northumberland, one of a long line of Airys who traced their descent back to a family of the same name residing at Kentmere, in Westmorland, in the 14th century. The branch to which he belonged, having suffered in the English Civil War, moved to Lincolnshire and became farmers. Airy was educated first at elementary schools in Hereford, and afterwards at Colchester Royal Grammar School. An introverted child, Airy gained popularity with his schoolmates through his great skill in the construction of peashooters.
From the age of 13, Airy stayed frequently with his uncle, Arthur Biddell at Playford, Suffolk. Biddell introduced Airy to his friend Thomas Clarkson, the slave trade abolitionist who lived at Playford Hall. Clarkson had an MA in mathematics from Cambridge, and examined Airy in classics and then subsequently arranged for him to be examined by a Fellow from Trinity College, Cambridge on his knowledge of mathematics.Autobiography of Sir George Biddel Airy (see Google books)Sir George Biddell Airy KCB. Leaflet available from Playford church As a result, he entered Trinity in 1819, as a sizar, meaning that he paid a reduced fee but essentially worked as a servant to make good the fee reduction. Here he had a brilliant career, and seems to have been almost immediately recognised as the leading man of his year. In 1822 he was elected scholar of Trinity, and in the following year he graduated as senior wrangler and obtained first Smith's Prize. On 1 October 1824 he was elected fellow of Trinity, and in December 1826 was appointed Lucasian professor of mathematics in succession to Thomas Turton. This chair he held for little more than a year, being elected in February 1828 Plumian professor of astronomy and director of the new Cambridge Observatory. In 1836 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1840, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1859 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Research
Some idea of his activity as a writer on mathematical and physical subjects during these early years may be gathered from the fact that previous to this appointment he had contributed three important memoirs to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and eight to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. At the Cambridge Observatory Airy soon showed his power of organisation. The only telescope in the establishment when he took charge was the transit instrument, and to this he vigorously devoted himself. By the adoption of a regular system of work, and a careful plan of reduction, he was able to keep his observations up to date, and published them annually with a punctuality which astonished his contemporaries. Before long a mural circle was installed, and regular observations were instituted with it in 1833. In the same year the Duke of Northumberland presented the Cambridge observatory with a fine object-glass of 12-inch aperture, which was mounted according to Airy's designs and under his superintendence, although construction was not completed until after he moved to Greenwich in 1835.
Airy's writings during this time are divided between mathematical physics and astronomy. The former are for the most part concerned with questions relating to the theory of light arising out of his professorial lectures, among which may be specially mentioned his paper On the Diffraction of an Object-Glass with Circular Aperture, and his enunciation of the complete theory of the rainbow. In 1831 the Copley Medal of the Royal Society was awarded to him for these researches. Of his astronomical writings during this period the most important are his investigation of the mass of Jupiter, his report to the British Association on the progress of astronomy during the 19th century, and his work On an Inequality of Long Period in the Motions of the Earth and Venus.
One of the sections of his able and instructive report was devoted to "A Comparison of the Progress of Astronomy in England with that in other Countries", very much to the disadvantage of England. This reproach was subsequently to a great extent removed by his own labours.
Mean density of the Earth One of the most remarkable of Airy's researches was his determination of the mean density of the Earth. In 1826, the idea occurred to him of attacking this problem by means of pendulum experiments at the top and bottom of a deep mine. His first attempt, made in the same year, at the Dolcoath mine in Cornwall, failed in consequence of an accident to one of the pendulums. A second attempt in 1828 was defeated by a flooding of the mine, and many years elapsed before another opportunity presented itself. The experiments eventually took place at the Harton pit near South Shields in northern England in 1854. Their immediate result was to show that gravity at the bottom of the mine exceeded that at the top by 1/19286 of its amount, the depth being . From this he was led to the final value of Earth's specific density of 6.566. This value, although considerably in excess of that previously found by different methods, was held by Airy, from the care and completeness with which the observations were carried out and discussed, to be "entitled to compete with the others on, at least, equal terms." The currently accepted value for Earth's density is 5.5153 g/cm3.
Reference geoid In 1830, Airy calculated the lengths of the polar radius and equatorial radius of the earth using measurements taken in the UK. Although his measurements were superseded by more accurate radius figures (such as those used for GRS 80 and WGS84) his Airy geoid (strictly a reference ellipsoid, OSGB36) is still used by Great Britain's Ordnance Survey for mapping of England, Scotland and Wales because it better fits the local sea level (about 80 cm below world average).
Planetary inequalities Airy's discovery of a new inequality in the motions of Venus and the Earth is in some respects his most remarkable achievement. In correcting the elements of Delambre's solar tables he had been led to suspect an inequality overlooked by their constructor. The cause of this he did not long seek in vain; thirteen times the mean motion of Venus is so nearly equal to eight times that of Earth that the difference amounts to only a small fraction of Earth's mean motion, and from the fact that the term depending on this difference, although very small in itself, receives in the integration of the differential equations a multiplier of about 2,200,000, Airy was led to infer the existence of a sensible inequality extending over 240 years (Phil. Trans. cxxii. 67). The investigation was probably the most laborious that had been made up to Airy's time in planetary theory, and represented the first specific improvement in the solar tables effected in England since the establishment of the theory of gravity. In recognition of this work the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society was awarded to him in 1833 (he would win it again in 1846).
Airy disk
The resolution of optical devices is limited by diffraction. So even the most perfect lens cannot quite generate a point image at its focus, but instead there is a bright central pattern now called the Airy disk, surrounded by concentric rings comprising an Airy pattern. The size of the Airy disk depends on the light wavelength and the size of the aperture. John Herschel had previously described the phenomenon,Herschel, J. F. W., "Light," in Transactions Treatises on physical astronomy, light and sound contributed to the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, Richard Griffin & Co., 1828, p. 491. but Airy was the first to explain it theoretically.Airy, G. B., "On the Diffraction of an Object-glass with Circular Aperture," Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Vol. 5, 1835, pp. 283–291.
Airy Disk Formation Simulation Individual Particles forming pinhole diffraction pattern Pinhole diffraction probability distribution
This was a key argument in refuting one of the last remaining arguments for absolute geocentrism: the giant star argument. Tycho Brahe and Giovanni Battista Riccioli pointed out that the lack of stellar parallax detectable at the time entailed that stars were a huge distance away. But the naked eye and the early telescopes with small apertures seemed to show that stars were disks of a certain size. This would imply that the stars were many times larger than the Sun (they were not aware of supergiant or hypergiant stars, but some were calculated to be even larger than the size of the whole universe estimated at the time). However, the disk appearances of the stars were spurious: they were not actually seeing stellar images, but Airy disks. With modern telescopes, even with those having the largest magnification, the images of almost all stars correctly appear as mere points of light.
Astronomer Royal
In June 1835 Airy was appointed Astronomer Royal in succession to John Pond, and began his long career at the national observatory which constitutes his chief title to fame. The condition of the observatory at the time of his appointment was such that Lord Auckland, the first Lord of the Admiralty, considered that "it ought to be cleared out," while Airy admitted that "it was in a queer state." With his usual energy he set to work at once to reorganise the whole management. He remodelled the volumes of observations, put the library on a proper footing, mounted the new (Sheepshanks) equatorial and organised a new magnetic observatory. In 1847 an altazimuth was erected, designed by Airy to enable observations of the moon to be made not only on the meridian, but whenever it might be visible. In 1848 Airy invented the reflex zenith tube to replace the zenith sector previously employed. At the end of 1850 the great transit circle of aperture and focal length was erected, and is still the principal instrument of its class at the observatory. The mounting in 1859 of an equatorial of aperture evoked the comment in his journal for that year, "There is not now a single person employed or instrument used in the observatory which was there in Mr Pond's time"; and the transformation was completed by the inauguration of spectroscopic work in 1868 and of the photographic registration of sunspots in 1873.
The formidable undertaking of reducing the accumulated planetary observations made at Greenwich from 1750 to 1830 was already in progress under Airy's supervision when he became Astronomer Royal. Shortly afterwards he undertook the further laborious task of reducing the enormous mass of observations of the moon made at Greenwich during the same period under the direction, successively, of James Bradley, Nathaniel Bliss, Nevil Maskelyne and John Pond, to defray the expense of which a large sum of money was allotted by the Treasury. As a result, no fewer than 8,000 lunar observations were rescued from oblivion, and were, in 1846, placed at the disposal of astronomers in such a form that they could be used directly for comparison with the theory and for the improvement of the tables of the moon's motion.