George Biddell Airy

“ ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH,
LONDON, S.E.,
1866, May 5.
MY DEAR SIR, The MS. concerning Colenso duly arrived.
I note your remarks on the merits of Colenso. I do not write to tell you that I differ from you, but to tell you why I differ.
I think that you do not make the proper distinction between a person who invents or introduces a tool, and the person who uses it.
The most resolute antigravitationist that ever lived might yet acknowledge his debt to Newton for the Method of Prime and Ultimate Ratios and the Principles of Fluxions by which Newton sought to establish gravitation. ”

“ ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH, 1866, May 11.
MY DEAR SIR, You will perceive, from perusal of the enclosed paper, that I have acted on the permission which you kindly gave me, to transmit to you my proposal for extension of the mathematical education of the University in the Physical direction.
It is an unavoidable consequence of the structure of the University that studies there will have a tendency to take an unpractical form depending much on the personal tastes of special examiners. ”

“ TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, May 10, 1872.
MY DEAR AIRY, I have received your card of invitation for the 1st of June, and with great joy should I count upon that day if I thought that I should be able to accept your invitation: but alas I have no hope of the kind, for that humiliating malady which now has fastened upon me for a full year and a half has not let go its hold, nor is it likely to do so. A man who is journeying in the 88th year of his pilgrimage is not likely to throw off such a chronic malady. ”

“ I think that the course of mathematical study at the University is likely to be a better one if regulated with a view to the cultivation of Science, as if for its own sake, rather than directly upon considerations of what is educationally best (I mean that the best educational course will be so obtained) , and that we have thus a justification for a thorough study of Pure Mathematics. In my own limited experience of examinations, the fault which I find with the men is a want of analytical power, and that whatever else may have been in defect Pure Mathematics has certainly not been in excess. ”

“ I much desire to see the system of time-signals extended, by clocks or daily signals, to various parts of our great cities and our dockyards, and above all by hourly signals on the Start Point, which I believe would be the greatest of all benefits to nautical chronometry. Should any extension of our scientific work ever be contemplated, I would remark that the Observatory is not the place for new physical investigations. It is well adapted for following out any which, originating with private investigators, have been reduced to laws susceptible of verification by daily observation. ”

“ Whereas Geometry (of course to an intelligent student) is a real inductive and deductive science of inexhaustible extent, in which he can experiment for himself—the very tracing of a curve from its equation (and still more the consideration of the cases belonging to different values of the parameters) is the construction of a theory to bind together the facts—and the selection of a curve or surface proper for the verification of any general theorem is the selection of an experiment in proof or disproof of a theory. ”

“ I trust that I am doing well in rendering Greenwich, even more distinctly than it has been heretofore, the place of reference to all the world for the important observations, and results of observations, on which the system of the universe is founded. As regards myself, I have been accustomed, in these matters, to lay aside private considerations; to consider that I am not a mere Superintendent of current observations, but a Trustee for the honour of Greenwich Observatory generally, and for its utility generally to the world ”

“ I believe that many of the best men of the nation consider that a great deal of time is lost on subjects which they esteem as puerile, and that much of that time might be employed on noble and useful science.
You may remember that the Commissions which have visited Cambridge originated in a Memorial addressed to the Government by men of respected scientific character: Sabine was one, and I may take him as the representative. He is a man of extensive knowledge of the application of mathematics as it has been employed for many years in the science of the world ”

“ Richard Smith, was a man of most cultivated mind, and of the highest principles, with a keen enjoyment of good society, which the confidence and friendship of his patron the Duke of Devonshire amply secured to him, both at Chatsworth and in London. He had a deep attachment to his Alma Mater of Cambridge, and though not himself a mathematician he had a great respect for the science of mathematics and for eminent mathematicians. ”

“ Still the question has not unfrequently presented itself to me, whether the duties to which I allude have not, by force of circumstances, become too exclusive; and whether the cause of Science might not gain if, as in the Imperial Observatory of Paris for instance, the higher branches of mathematical physics should not take their place by the side of Observatory routine. I have often felt the desire practically to refresh my acquaintance with what were once favourite subjects: Lunar Theory and Physical Optics. ”

“ DEAR SIR, I am extremely ignorant of all matters connected with court ceremonial, and in reference to the proposed Knighthood would ask you:—
1. I trust that there is no expense of fees. To persons like myself of small fortune an honour may sometimes be somewhat dear.
2. My highest social rank is that given by my Academical Degree of D.C.L. which I hold in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In regard to costume, would it be proper that I should appear in the scarlet gown of that degree? or in the ordinary Court Dress?
I am, Dear Sir,
Yours very faithfully,
G.B. AIRY. ”

“ We had all but one feeling of the purest pleasure in the prospect of the true domestic comfort to which we fully believe you to be now gone, and we rejoice that all your endearing qualities will now be employed to promote the happiness of one whom we think so worthy of them as your dear husband, who has left us in the best opinion of his good heart, as well as his enlightened and sound understanding. ”

“ Cayley on the contrary regarded mathematics as a useful exercise for the mind, apart from any immediate practical object, and he considered that the general command of mathematics gained by handling abstruse mathematical investigations (though barren in themselves) would be valuable for whatever purpose mathematics might be required: he also thought it likely that his researches and advances in the field of Pure Mathematics might facilitate the solution of physical problems and tend to the progress of the practical sciences. ”

“ I believe that, in addition to the effects ascribable to Newtonian gravitation (as general motion of the earth, precession of the equinoxes, and tides) , this magnetic disturbance is the only one yet established as depending on an external body. Men in general, however, do not think so. It appears to be a law of the human mind, to love to trace an effect to a cause, and to be ready to assent to any specious cause. Thus all practical men of the lower classes, even those whose pecuniary interests are concerned in it, believe firmly in the influence of the moon upon the winds and the weather. ”

“ I think that a heavy responsibility rests on the persons who influence most strongly the course of education in the University, to direct that course in the way in which it will be most useful to the students—in the two ways, of disciplining their powers and habits, and of giving them scientific knowledge of the highest and most accurate order (applying to the phenomena of nature) such as will be useful to them through life. ”

“ I do not quite understand your reference to Stokes and Adams, as types of the men who alone retain their abstract Analytical Geometry. If a man when he takes his degree drops mathematics, he drops geometry—but if not I think for the above reasons that he is more likely to go on with it than with almost any other subject—and any mathematical journal will shew that a very great amount of attention is in fact given to geometry. ”

“ I do not think everything should be subordinated to the educational element: my idea of a University is that of a place for the cultivation of all science. Therefore among other sciences Pure Mathematics; including whatever is interesting as part of this science. I am bound therefore to admit that your proposed extension of the problem of billiards, if it were found susceptible of interesting mathematical developments, would be a fit subject of study. ”

“ He, as I believe, desired to find persons who could enter accurately into mathematical science, and naturally looked to the Great Mathematical University; but he must have been much disappointed. So much time is swallowed up by the forced study of the Pure Mathematics that it is not easy to find anybody who can really enter on these subjects in which men of science want assistance. And so Sabine thought that the Government ought to interfere, probably without any clear idea of what they could do.
I am, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
G.B. AIRY.
Professor Cayley. ”

“ DEAR SIR, I have to acknowledge your letter of yesterday: and I advert to that part of it in which it is stated that the Fees on Knighthood amount to about £30.
Twenty-seven years ago the same rank was offered to me by Lord John Russell and Mr Spring Rice (then Ministers of the Crown) , with the express notice that no fees would be payable. I suppose that the usage (whatever it be) on which that notice was founded still subsists.
To a person whose annual income little more than suffices to meet the annual expenses of a very moderate establishment, an unsought honour may be an incumbrance. ”

“ The first stars which I learnt from the celestial globe were alpha Lyrae, alpha Aquilae, alpha Cygni: and to this time I involuntarily regard these stars as the birth-stars of my astronomical knowledge. Having somewhere seen a description of a Gunter's quadrant, I perceived that I could construct one by means of the globe: my father procured for me a board of the proper shape with paper pasted on it, and on this I traced the lines of the quadrant. ”

“ I make it solely upon public grounds, and I ask you, by the acceptance of it, to permit the King to give some slight encouragement to Science, by proving to those who may be disposed to follow your bright Example, that Devotion to the highest Branches of Mathematical and Astronomical Knowledge shall not necessarily involve them in constant solicitude as to the future condition of those, for whom the application of the same Talents to more lucrative Pursuits would have ensured an ample Provision. ”

“ His late stay with us has endeared him to us all. Never did man enter into the married state from more honourable motives, or from a heart more truly seeking the genuine happiness of that state than Mr Airy, and he will, I trust, find his reward in you from all that a good wife can render to the best of husbands, and his happiness be reflected on yourself. ”

“ It may therefore seem not impossible or unplausible that other celestial bodies may affect perhaps others of the powers of nature about us. But there I must stop. The denial of the impossibility is no assertion of the truth or probability, and I absolutely decline to take either side—either that the influences are real, or that the influences are unreal—till I see evidence of their effects. ”

“ The existing Theories and Tables of the Moon are founded entirely upon the Greenwich Observations; the Observatory of Greenwich has been looked to as that from which alone adequate observations can be expected, and from which they will not be expected in vain: and it is not perhaps venturing too much to predict that, unless some gross dereliction of duty by the managers of the Observatory should occur, the Lunar Tables will always be founded on Greenwich Observations. ”

“ Every bit of wood is carried away clean, with scarcely a smoke-daub to mark where it has been: the building looks as if the walls were just prepared for a roof, but there are some deep dints in the pavement, shewing where large masses have fallen. ”

“ Now I can say for myself that I have, for some years, inspected the examination papers, and have considered the bearing of the course which they imply upon the education of the student, and am firmly convinced that as regards men below the very few first—say below the ten first—there is a prodigious loss of time without any permanent good whatever. For the great majority of men, such subjects as abstract Analytical Geometry perish at once. With men like Adams and Stokes they remain, and are advantageous ”

“ The books on applied Mathematics were Wood's Mechanics, Whewell's Mechanics, Wood's Optics, Vince's Hydrostatics, Vince's Astronomy, Woodhouse's Plane Astronomy (perhaps rather later) , The First Book of Newton's Principia: I do not remember any others. These works were undoubtedly able; and for the great proportion of University students going into active life, I do not conceal my opinion that books constructed on the principles of those which I have cited were more useful than those exclusively founded on the more modern system. ”