Which runs approximately 102 metres to the east
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George Biddell Airy
Sir George Biddell Airy 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, establish…
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science · English mathematician and astronomer (1801–1892) · mathematician · astronomer · physicist · university teacher · writer · also George Biddell Airy, George Airy, Sir George Biddell Airy, Sir G. B. Airy, Airy
Born 27 July 1801 · Died 2 January 1892 · Q20018
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1984· 1 entry
1892· 1 entry
Died 1892-01-02.
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1891· 1 entry
Suffered a fall and an internal injury
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1890· 1 entry
Tells us how a grievous error had been committed in one of the first steps, and pathetically adds, "My spirit in the work was broken, and I have never heartily proceeded with it since
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1886· 1 entry
When its author was eighty-five years of age
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1881· 1 entry
Living with his two unmarried daughters at Croom's Hill near Greenwich
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1876· 1 entry
Won Albert Medal (1876).
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1872· 1 entry
Airy conceived the idea of treating the lunar theory in a new way, and at the age of seventy-one he embarked on the prodigious toil which this scheme entailed
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1871· 2 entries
Career landmark: President of the Royal Society (1871–1873).
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Airy looked for a change in stellar aberration through the refracting water due to the aether drag hypothesis
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1868· 1 entry
And of the photographic registration of sunspots in 1873
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1862· 1 entry
Airy presented a new technique to determine the strain and stress field within a beam
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1859· 2 entries
Of an equatorial of 330 mm (13 in) 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 tr
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Became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
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1853· 1 entry
Career landmark: President of the Royal Astronomical Society (1853–1855).
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1851· 1 entry
Airy established a new Prime Meridian at Greenwich
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1849· 1 entry
Career landmark: President of the Royal Astronomical Society (1849–1851).
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1848· 2 entries
Airy invented the reflex zenith tube to replace the zenith sector previously employed
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A testimonial from the Royal Astronomical Society, and it at once led to the discovery by Peter Andreas Hansen of two new inequalities in the moon's motion
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1847· 1 entry
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
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1846· 2 entries
Won Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1846).
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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
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1845· 1 entry
Won Royal Medal (1845).
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1844· 1 entry
Career landmark: President of the Royal Astronomical Society (1844–1845).
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1840· 1 entry
Won Royal Society Bakerian Medal (1840).
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1836· 2 entries
Awarded Fellow of the Royal Society (1836).
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Was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1840, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
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1835· 3 entries
Awarded Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1835).
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Career landmark: President of the Royal Astronomical Society (1835–1837).
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Career landmark: Astronomer Royal (1835–1881).
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1834· 1 entry
Awarded Lalande Prize (1834).
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1832· 1 entry
Awarded Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1832).
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1831· 2 entries
Won Copley Medal (1831).
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The Copley Medal of the Royal Society was awarded to him for these researches
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1830· 2 entries
With Airy established in his Cambridge position, was permission for the marriage granted
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Airy calculated the lengths of the polar radius and equatorial radius of the earth using measurements taken in the UK
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1828· 2 entries
Was defeated by a flooding of the mine, and many years elapsed before another opportunity presented itself
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Career landmark: Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy (1828–1835).
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1826· 2 entries
The idea occurred to him of attacking this problem by means of pendulum experiments at the top and bottom of a deep mine
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Career landmark: Lucasian Professor of Mathematics (1826–1828).
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1823· 2 entries
Awarded Smith's Prize (1823).
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Studied at Trinity College (1819–1823).
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1822· 1 entry
Was elected scholar of Trinity, and in the following year he graduated as senior wrangler and obtained first Smith's Prize
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1819· 2 entries
Studied at Colchester Royal Grammar School (1814–1819).
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As a sizar, meaning that he paid a reduced fee but essentially worked as a servant to make good the fee reduction
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1801· 1 entry
Born 1801-07-27.
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