Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy, George Biddell Airy [dark books to read TXT] 📗
- Author: George Biddell Airy
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of the name of Airy were still living there. He then went on by Coniston and Grasmere to Portinscale, and spent the rest of his time in expeditions amongst the hills and visits to friends.--On July 28th he went to Woodbridge in Suffolk and distributed the prizes to the boys of the Grammar School there.--From Oct. 9th to Nov. 12th he was again at Playford.--Throughout the year he was busily engaged on the Numerical Lunar Theory, and found but little time for miscellaneous reading.
Of printed papers by Airy in this year the most important was one on the "Results deduced from the Measures of Terrestrial Magnetic Force in the Horizontal Plane," &c. This was a long Paper, communicated to the Royal Society, and published in the Phil. Trans., and was the last Scientific Paper of any importance (except the Volume of the Numerical Lunar Theory) in the long list of "Papers by G.B. Airy." The preparation of this Paper took much time.--Of miscellaneous matters: In May a Committee of the Royal Society had been appointed to advise the India Office as to the publication of Col. J. Herschel's pendulum observations in India; and Airy was asked to assist the Committee with his advice. He gave very careful and anxious consideration to the subject, and it occupied much time.--In the early part of the year he was asked by Sir William Thomson to assist him with an affidavit in a lawsuit concerning an alleged infringement of one of his Patents for the improvement of the Compass. Airy declined to make an affidavit or to take sides in the dispute, but he wrote a letter from which the following is extracted: "I cannot have the least difficulty in expressing my opinion that you have made a great advance in the application of my method of correcting the compass in iron ships, by your introduction of the use of short needles for the compass-cards. In my original investigations, when the whole subject was in darkness, I could only use existing means for experiment, namely the long-needle compasses then existing. But when I applied mechanical theory to explanation of the results, I felt grievously the deficiency of a theory and the construction which it suggested (necessarily founded on assumption that the proportion of the needle-length to the other elements of measure is small) when the length of the needles was really so great. I should possibly have used some construction like yours, but the Government had not then a single iron vessel, and did not seem disposed to urge the enquiry. You, under happier auspices, have successfully carried it out, and, I fully believe, with much advantage to the science."--He wrote a Paper for the Athenaeum and had various correspondence on the subject of the Badbury Rings in Dorsetshire, which he (and others) considered as identical with the "Mons Badonicus" of Gildas, the site of an ancient British battle.--In February he was in correspondence with the Astronomer Royal on Uniform Time Reckoning, and on considerations relating to it.--On June 6th he attended the Annual Visitation of the Observatory, and brought before the Board his investigations of the Diurnal Magnetic Inequalities, and the revises of his Lunar Theory.
1886
From June 8th to July 17th he was at Playford.--And again at Playford from Oct. 5th to Nov. 8th.--On March 27th he had an attack of gout in his right foot, which continued through April and into May, causing him much inconvenience.--He was busy with the Numerical Lunar Theory up to Sept. 25th, when he was reading the last proof-sheet received from the printers: during this period his powers were evidently failing, and there are frequent references to errors discovered and corrected, and to uncertainties connected with points of the Theory. But his great work on the Numerical Lunar Theory was printed in this year: and there can be no doubt that he experienced a great feeling of relief when this was accomplished.--He was in correspondence with Prof. Adams as to the effect of his reduction of the Coefficient of Lunar Acceleration on the calculation of the ancient historical eclipses.--He compiled a Paper "On the establishment of the Roman dominion in England," which was printed in 1887.--He wrote a notice concerning events in the life of Mr John Jackson of Rosthwaite near Keswick, a well-known guide and much-respected authority on matters relating to the Lake District.--He also wrote a short account of the connection of the history of Mdlle de Queroualle with that of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.--On June 4th he attended at the Annual Visitation of the Observatory.
1887
On May 9th to 11th he made a short visit to Eastbourne and the neighbourhood.--From June 8th to July 13th he was at Playford.--From Aug. 29th to Sept. 5th he was travelling in Dorsetshire and Wiltshire: he went first to Weymouth, a very favourite centre for excursions with him, and afterwards visited Bridport and Lyme Regis: then by Dorchester to Blandford, and visited the Hod Hill, Badbury Rings, &c.: at Wimborne he was much interested in the architecture of the church: lastly he visited Salisbury, Old Sarum, Stonehenge, &c., and returned to Greenwich.--From Oct. 11th to Nov. 12th he was at Playford.--During this year he partly occupied himself with arranging his papers and drawings, and with miscellaneous reading. But he could not withdraw his thoughts from his Lunar Theory, and he still continued to struggle with the difficulties of the subject, and was constantly scheming improvements. His private accounts also now gave him much trouble. Throughout his life he had been accustomed to keep his accounts by double entry in very perfect order. But he now began to make mistakes and to grow confused, and this distressed him greatly. It never seemed to occur to him to abandon his elaborate system of accounts, and to content himself with simple entries of receipts and expenses. This would have been utterly opposed to his sense of order, which was now more than ever the ruling principle of his mind. And so he struggled with his accounts as he did with his Lunar Theory till his powers absolutely failed. In his Journal for this year there are various entries of mental attacks of short duration and other ailments ascribable to his advanced age.
The last printed "Papers by G.B. Airy" belong to this year. One was the Paper before referred to "On the establishment of the Roman dominion in England": another was on the solution of a certain Equation: and there were early reminiscences of the Cambridge Tripos, &c.--In February he attended a little to a new edition of his Ipswich Lectures, but soon handed it over to Mr H.H. Turner of the Royal Observatory.--On May 23rd he was drawing up suggestions for the arrangement of the Seckford School, &c., at Woodbridge.--On June 4th he attended the Visitation of the Royal Observatory, when a resolution was passed in favour of complete photography of the star-sky.
1888
From the 14th to 16th of May he made a short expedition to Bournemouth, and stopped on the way home to visit Winchester Cathedral.--From June 27th to Aug. 3rd he was at Playford; and again from Oct. 13th to Nov. 10th.--During the first half of the year he continued his examination of his Lunar Theory, but gradually dropped it. There are several references in his Journal to his feelings of pain and weakness, both mental and bodily: at the end of March he had an attack of gout in the fingers of his right hand. During the latter part of the year he was troubled with his private accounts, as before.--He does not appear to have been engaged on any miscellaneous matters calling for special notice in this year. But he kept up his astronomical correspondence--with Lockyer on the meteorite system of planetary formation; with Pritchard on the work of the Oxford University Observatory; with Adams on his Numerical Lunar Theory, &c., and with others.--On June 2nd he attended the Visitation of the Royal Observatory.--He amused himself occasionally with reading his favourite subjects of history and antiquities, and with looking over some of his early investigations of scientific questions.
1889
On June 5th he made a one-day's excursion to Colchester.--From July 2nd to 27th he was in the Cumberland Lake District, chiefly at Portinscale near Keswick. While staying at Portinscale he was seized with a sudden giddiness and fell upon the floor: he afterwards wrote a curious account of the visions which oppressed his brain immediately after the accident. He returned by Solihull, where his son Osmund was residing.--From Oct. 4th to Nov. 8th he was at Playford. While there he drew up a short statement of his general state of health, adverting particularly to the loss of strength in his legs and failure of his walking powers.--His health seems to have failed a good deal in this year: on Feb. 4th he had an accidental fall, and there are several entries in his Journal of mental attacks, pains in his limbs, affection of his eye-sight, &c.--In the early part of the year he was much engaged on the history of the Airy family, particularly on that of his father.--In this year the White House was sold by auction by its owners, and Airy purchased it on May 24th.--He was still in difficulties with his private accounts, but was making efforts to abandon his old and elaborate system.--For his amusement he was chiefly engaged on Theological Notes which he was compiling: and also on early optical investigations, &c.
On June 1st he attended the Visitation of the Royal Observatory, and moved a resolution that a Committee be appointed to consider whether any reduction can be effected in the amount of matter printed in the Volume of Observations of the Royal Observatory. During his tenure of office he had on various occasions brought this subject before the Board of Visitors, and with his usual tenacity of purpose he now as Visitor pressed it upon their notice.--In May he zealously joined with others in an application to get for Dr Huggins a pension on the Civil List.--In January he prepared a short Paper illustrated with diagrams to exhibit the Interference of Solar Light, as used by him in his Lectures at Cambridge in 1836: but it does not appear to have been published.--In April he received a copy of a Paper by Mr Rundell, referring to the complete adoption of his system of compass correction in iron ships, not only in the merchant service, but also in the Navy. This was a matter of peculiar gratification to Airy, who had always maintained that the method of Tables of Errors, which had been so persistently adhered to by the Admiralty, was a mistake, and that sooner or later they would find it necessary to adopt his method of mechanical correction. The passage referred to is as follows: "The name of Sir George Airy, the father of the mechanical compensation of the compass in iron vessels, having just been mentioned, it may not be inappropriate to remind you that the present year is the fiftieth since Sir George
Of printed papers by Airy in this year the most important was one on the "Results deduced from the Measures of Terrestrial Magnetic Force in the Horizontal Plane," &c. This was a long Paper, communicated to the Royal Society, and published in the Phil. Trans., and was the last Scientific Paper of any importance (except the Volume of the Numerical Lunar Theory) in the long list of "Papers by G.B. Airy." The preparation of this Paper took much time.--Of miscellaneous matters: In May a Committee of the Royal Society had been appointed to advise the India Office as to the publication of Col. J. Herschel's pendulum observations in India; and Airy was asked to assist the Committee with his advice. He gave very careful and anxious consideration to the subject, and it occupied much time.--In the early part of the year he was asked by Sir William Thomson to assist him with an affidavit in a lawsuit concerning an alleged infringement of one of his Patents for the improvement of the Compass. Airy declined to make an affidavit or to take sides in the dispute, but he wrote a letter from which the following is extracted: "I cannot have the least difficulty in expressing my opinion that you have made a great advance in the application of my method of correcting the compass in iron ships, by your introduction of the use of short needles for the compass-cards. In my original investigations, when the whole subject was in darkness, I could only use existing means for experiment, namely the long-needle compasses then existing. But when I applied mechanical theory to explanation of the results, I felt grievously the deficiency of a theory and the construction which it suggested (necessarily founded on assumption that the proportion of the needle-length to the other elements of measure is small) when the length of the needles was really so great. I should possibly have used some construction like yours, but the Government had not then a single iron vessel, and did not seem disposed to urge the enquiry. You, under happier auspices, have successfully carried it out, and, I fully believe, with much advantage to the science."--He wrote a Paper for the Athenaeum and had various correspondence on the subject of the Badbury Rings in Dorsetshire, which he (and others) considered as identical with the "Mons Badonicus" of Gildas, the site of an ancient British battle.--In February he was in correspondence with the Astronomer Royal on Uniform Time Reckoning, and on considerations relating to it.--On June 6th he attended the Annual Visitation of the Observatory, and brought before the Board his investigations of the Diurnal Magnetic Inequalities, and the revises of his Lunar Theory.
1886
From June 8th to July 17th he was at Playford.--And again at Playford from Oct. 5th to Nov. 8th.--On March 27th he had an attack of gout in his right foot, which continued through April and into May, causing him much inconvenience.--He was busy with the Numerical Lunar Theory up to Sept. 25th, when he was reading the last proof-sheet received from the printers: during this period his powers were evidently failing, and there are frequent references to errors discovered and corrected, and to uncertainties connected with points of the Theory. But his great work on the Numerical Lunar Theory was printed in this year: and there can be no doubt that he experienced a great feeling of relief when this was accomplished.--He was in correspondence with Prof. Adams as to the effect of his reduction of the Coefficient of Lunar Acceleration on the calculation of the ancient historical eclipses.--He compiled a Paper "On the establishment of the Roman dominion in England," which was printed in 1887.--He wrote a notice concerning events in the life of Mr John Jackson of Rosthwaite near Keswick, a well-known guide and much-respected authority on matters relating to the Lake District.--He also wrote a short account of the connection of the history of Mdlle de Queroualle with that of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.--On June 4th he attended at the Annual Visitation of the Observatory.
1887
On May 9th to 11th he made a short visit to Eastbourne and the neighbourhood.--From June 8th to July 13th he was at Playford.--From Aug. 29th to Sept. 5th he was travelling in Dorsetshire and Wiltshire: he went first to Weymouth, a very favourite centre for excursions with him, and afterwards visited Bridport and Lyme Regis: then by Dorchester to Blandford, and visited the Hod Hill, Badbury Rings, &c.: at Wimborne he was much interested in the architecture of the church: lastly he visited Salisbury, Old Sarum, Stonehenge, &c., and returned to Greenwich.--From Oct. 11th to Nov. 12th he was at Playford.--During this year he partly occupied himself with arranging his papers and drawings, and with miscellaneous reading. But he could not withdraw his thoughts from his Lunar Theory, and he still continued to struggle with the difficulties of the subject, and was constantly scheming improvements. His private accounts also now gave him much trouble. Throughout his life he had been accustomed to keep his accounts by double entry in very perfect order. But he now began to make mistakes and to grow confused, and this distressed him greatly. It never seemed to occur to him to abandon his elaborate system of accounts, and to content himself with simple entries of receipts and expenses. This would have been utterly opposed to his sense of order, which was now more than ever the ruling principle of his mind. And so he struggled with his accounts as he did with his Lunar Theory till his powers absolutely failed. In his Journal for this year there are various entries of mental attacks of short duration and other ailments ascribable to his advanced age.
The last printed "Papers by G.B. Airy" belong to this year. One was the Paper before referred to "On the establishment of the Roman dominion in England": another was on the solution of a certain Equation: and there were early reminiscences of the Cambridge Tripos, &c.--In February he attended a little to a new edition of his Ipswich Lectures, but soon handed it over to Mr H.H. Turner of the Royal Observatory.--On May 23rd he was drawing up suggestions for the arrangement of the Seckford School, &c., at Woodbridge.--On June 4th he attended the Visitation of the Royal Observatory, when a resolution was passed in favour of complete photography of the star-sky.
1888
From the 14th to 16th of May he made a short expedition to Bournemouth, and stopped on the way home to visit Winchester Cathedral.--From June 27th to Aug. 3rd he was at Playford; and again from Oct. 13th to Nov. 10th.--During the first half of the year he continued his examination of his Lunar Theory, but gradually dropped it. There are several references in his Journal to his feelings of pain and weakness, both mental and bodily: at the end of March he had an attack of gout in the fingers of his right hand. During the latter part of the year he was troubled with his private accounts, as before.--He does not appear to have been engaged on any miscellaneous matters calling for special notice in this year. But he kept up his astronomical correspondence--with Lockyer on the meteorite system of planetary formation; with Pritchard on the work of the Oxford University Observatory; with Adams on his Numerical Lunar Theory, &c., and with others.--On June 2nd he attended the Visitation of the Royal Observatory.--He amused himself occasionally with reading his favourite subjects of history and antiquities, and with looking over some of his early investigations of scientific questions.
1889
On June 5th he made a one-day's excursion to Colchester.--From July 2nd to 27th he was in the Cumberland Lake District, chiefly at Portinscale near Keswick. While staying at Portinscale he was seized with a sudden giddiness and fell upon the floor: he afterwards wrote a curious account of the visions which oppressed his brain immediately after the accident. He returned by Solihull, where his son Osmund was residing.--From Oct. 4th to Nov. 8th he was at Playford. While there he drew up a short statement of his general state of health, adverting particularly to the loss of strength in his legs and failure of his walking powers.--His health seems to have failed a good deal in this year: on Feb. 4th he had an accidental fall, and there are several entries in his Journal of mental attacks, pains in his limbs, affection of his eye-sight, &c.--In the early part of the year he was much engaged on the history of the Airy family, particularly on that of his father.--In this year the White House was sold by auction by its owners, and Airy purchased it on May 24th.--He was still in difficulties with his private accounts, but was making efforts to abandon his old and elaborate system.--For his amusement he was chiefly engaged on Theological Notes which he was compiling: and also on early optical investigations, &c.
On June 1st he attended the Visitation of the Royal Observatory, and moved a resolution that a Committee be appointed to consider whether any reduction can be effected in the amount of matter printed in the Volume of Observations of the Royal Observatory. During his tenure of office he had on various occasions brought this subject before the Board of Visitors, and with his usual tenacity of purpose he now as Visitor pressed it upon their notice.--In May he zealously joined with others in an application to get for Dr Huggins a pension on the Civil List.--In January he prepared a short Paper illustrated with diagrams to exhibit the Interference of Solar Light, as used by him in his Lectures at Cambridge in 1836: but it does not appear to have been published.--In April he received a copy of a Paper by Mr Rundell, referring to the complete adoption of his system of compass correction in iron ships, not only in the merchant service, but also in the Navy. This was a matter of peculiar gratification to Airy, who had always maintained that the method of Tables of Errors, which had been so persistently adhered to by the Admiralty, was a mistake, and that sooner or later they would find it necessary to adopt his method of mechanical correction. The passage referred to is as follows: "The name of Sir George Airy, the father of the mechanical compensation of the compass in iron vessels, having just been mentioned, it may not be inappropriate to remind you that the present year is the fiftieth since Sir George
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