Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy by George Biddell Airy (e ink epub reader .TXT) 📖

epoch in my mathematical knowledge. First, I was compelled by the process of "changing the independent variable" to examine severely the logic of the Differential Calculus. Secondly, I was now able to enter on the Theory of Perturbations, which for several years had been the desired land to me.

"At the Fellowship Election of Oct. 1st, Sydney Walker (among other persons) was elected Fellow. He then quitted the rooms in which he had lived (almost the worst in the College), and I immediately took them. They suited me well and I lived very happily in them till I was elected Scholar. They are small rooms above the middle staircase on the south side of Neville's Court. (Mr Peacock's rooms were on the same staircase.) I had access to the leads on the roof of the building from one of my windows. This was before the New Court was built: my best window looked upon the garden of the College butler.

"I had brought to Cambridge the telescope which I had made at Colchester, and about this time I had a stand made by a carpenter at Cambridge: and I find repeated observations of Jupiter and Saturn made in this October term.

"Other mathematical subjects on my scribbling-paper are: Geometrical Astronomy, Barometers (for elevations), Maclaurin's Figure of the Earth, Lagrange's Theorem, Integrals, Differential Equations of the second order, Particular Solutions. In general mathematics I had much discussion with Atkinson (who was Senior Wrangler, January 1821), and in Physics with Rosser, who was a friend of Sir Richard Phillips, a vain objector to gravitation. In Classics I read Aeschylus and Herodotus.

"On October 5th I received notice from the Head Lecturer to declaim in English with Winning. (This exercise consists in preparing a controversial essay, learning it by heart, and speaking it in Chapel after the Thursday evening's service.) On October 6th we agreed on the subject, "Is natural difference to be ascribed to moral or to physical causes?" I taking the latter side. I spoke the declamation (reciting it without missing a word) on October 25th. On October 26th I received notice of Latin declamation with Myers: subject agreed on, "Utrum civitati plus utilitatis an incommodi afferant leges quae ad vitas privatorum hominum ordinandas pertinent"; I took the former. The declamation was recited on November 11, when a curious circumstance occurred. My declamation was rather long: it was the first Saturday of the term on which a declamation had been spoken: and it was the day on which arrived the news of the withdrawal of the Bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen Caroline. (This trial had been going on through the summer, but I knew little about it.) In consequence the impatience of the undergraduates was very great, and there was such an uproar of coughing &c. in the Chapel as probably was never known. The Master (Dr Wordsworth, appointed in the beginning of the summer on the death of Dr Mansell, and to whom I had been indirectly introduced by Mrs Clarkson) and Tutors and Deans tried in vain to stop the hubbub. However I went on steadily to the end, not at all frightened. On the Monday the Master sent for me to make a sort of apology in the name of the authorities, and letters to the Tutors were read at the Lectures, and on the whole the transaction was nowise disagreeable to me.

"On the Commemoration Day, December 15th, I received my Prize (Mitford's Greece) as First-Class man, after dinner in the College Hall. After a short vacation spent at Bury and Playford I returned to Cambridge, walking from Bury on Jan. 22nd, 1821. During the next term I find in Mathematics Partial Differential Equations, Tides, Sound, Calculus of Variations, Composition of rotary motions, Motion in resisting medium, Lhuillier's theorem, Brightness of an object as seen through a medium with any possible law of refraction (a good investigation), star-reductions, numerical calculations connected with them, equilibrium of chain under centripetal force (geometrically treated, as an improvement upon Whewell's algebraical method), investigation of the magnitude of attractive forces of glass, &c., required to produce refraction. I forget about Mathematical Lectures; but I have an impression that I regularly attended Mr Peacock's lectures, and that he always set me some private problems.

"I attended Mr Evans's lectures on St Luke: and I find many notes about the history of the Jews, Cerinthus and various heresies, Paley's Moral Philosophy, Paley's Evidences, and Biblical Maps: also speculations about ancient pronunciations.

"For a week or more before the annual examination I was perfectly lazy. The Classes of my year (Junior Sophs) were not published till June 11. It was soon known that I was first with 2000 marks, the next being Drinkwater with 1200 marks. After a short holiday at Bury and Playford I returned to Cambridge on July 18th, 1821. My daily life went on as usual. I find that in writing Latin I began Cicero De Senectute (retranslating Melmoth's translation, and comparing). Some time in the Long Vacation the names of the Prizemen for Declamations were published: I was disappointed that not one, English or Latin, was assigned to me: but it was foolish, for my declamations were rather trumpery.

"My former pupil, Rosser, came again on August 14th. On August 29th Dr Blomfield (afterwards Bishop of London) called, to engage me as Tutor to his brother George Beecher Blomfield, and he commenced attendance on Sept. 1st. With these two pupils I finished at the end of the Long Vacation: for the next three terms I had one pupil, Gibson, a Newcastle man, recommended by Mr Peacock, I believe, as a personal friend (Mr Peacock being of Durham).

"The only classical subject appointed for the next examination was the 5th, 6th and 7th Books of the Odyssey: the mathematical subjects all the Applied Mathematics and Newton. There was to be however the Scholarship Examination (Sizars being allowed to sit for Scholarships only in their 3rd year: and the Scholarship being a kind of little Fellowship necessary to qualify for being a candidate for the real Fellowship).

"When the October term began Mr Hustler, who usually gave lectures in mathematics to his third-year pupils, said to me that it was not worth my while to attend his lectures, and he or Mr Peacock suggested that Drinkwater, Myers, and I should attend the Questionists' examinations. The Questionists are those who are to take the degree of B.A. in the next January: and it was customary, not to give them lectures, but three times a week to examine them by setting mathematical questions, as the best method of preparing for the B.A. examination. Accordingly it was arranged that we should attend the said examinations: but when we went the Questionists of that year refused to attend. They were reported to be a weak year, and we to be a strong one: and they were disposed to take offence at us on any occasion. From some of the scholars of our year who sat at table with scholars of that year I heard that they distinguished us as 'the impudent year,' 'the annus mirabilis' &c. On this occasion they pretended to believe that the plan of our attendance at the Questionists' examinations had been suggested by an undergraduate, and no explanation was of the least use. So the Tutors agreed not to press the matter on them: and instead of it, Drinkwater, Myers, and I went three times a week to Mr Peacock's rooms, and he set us questions. I think that this system was also continued during the next two terms (ending in June 1822) or part of them, but I am not certain.

"In August 1821 I copied out a M.S. on Optics, I think from Mr Whewell: on August 24th one on the Figure of the Earth and Tides; and at some other time one on the motion of a body round two centers of force; both from Mr Whewell. On my scribbling paper I find--A problem on the vibrations of a gig as depending on the horse's step (like that of a pendulum whose support is disturbed), Maclaurin's Attractions, Effect of separating the lenses of an achromatic object-glass (suggested by my old telescope), Barlow's theory of numbers, and division of the circle into 17 parts, partial differentials, theory of eye-pieces, epicycloids, Figure of the Earth, Time of body in arc of parabola, Problem of Sound, Tides, Refraction of Lens, including thickness, &c., Ivory's paper on Equations, Achromatism of microscope, Capillary Attraction, Motions of Fluids, Euler's principal axes, Spherical pendulum, Equation b squared(d squaredy/dx squared)=(d squaredy/dt squared), barometer, Lunar Theory well worked out, ordinary differential equations, Calculus of Variations, Interpolations like Laplace's for Comets, Kepler's theorem. In September I had my old telescope mounted on a short tripod stand, and made experiments on its adjustments. I was possessed of White's Ephemeris, and I find observations of Jupiter and Saturn in October. I planned an engine for describing ellipses by the polar equation A/(1 + e cos theta) and tried to make a micrometer with silk threads converging to a point. Mr Cubitt called on Oct. 4 and Nov. 1; he was engaged in erecting a treadmill at Cambridge Gaol, and had some thoughts of sending plans for the Cambridge Observatory, the erection of which was then proposed. On Nov. 19 I find that I had received from Cubitt a Nautical Almanac, the first that I had. On Dec. 11 I made some experiments with Drinkwater: I think it was whirling a glass containing oil on water. In Classics I was chiefly engaged upon Thucydides and Homer. On October 6th I had a letter from Charles Musgrave, introducing Challis, who succeeded me in the Cambridge Observatory in 1836.

"At this time my poor afflicted father was suffering much from a severe form of rheumatism or pain in the legs which sometimes prevented him from going to bed for weeks together.

"On the Commemoration Day, Dec. 18th, I received my prize as first-class man in Hall again. The next day I walked to Bury, and passed the winter vacation there and at Playford.

"I returned to Cambridge on Jan. 24th, 1822. On Feb. 12th I kept my first Act, with great compliments from the Moderator, and with a most unusually large attendance of auditors. These disputations on mathematics, in Latin, are now discontinued. On March 20th I kept a first Opponency against Sandys. About this time I received Buckle, a Trinity man of my own year, who was generally supposed to come next after Drinkwater, as pupil. On my sheets I find integrals and differential equations of every kind, astronomical corrections (of which I prepared a book), chances, Englefield's comets, investigation of the brightness within a rainbow, proof of Clairaut's theorem in one case, metacentres, change of independent variable applied to a complicated case, generating functions, principal axes. On Apr. 8th I intended to write an account of my eye: I was then tormented with a double image, I suppose from some disease of the stomach: and on May 28th I find by a drawing of the appearance of a lamp that the disease of my eye continued.

"On Feb. 11th I gave Mr Peacock a paper on the alteration of the focal length of a telescope as directed with or against the Earth's orbital motion (on the theory of emissions) which was written out for reading to the Cambridge Philosophical Society on Feb. 24th and 25th. [This Society I think was then about a year old.] On Feb. 1 my MS. on Precession, Solar Inequality, and Nutation, was made complete.

"The important examination for Scholarships was now approaching. As I have said, this one opportunity only was given to Sizars (Pensioners having always two opportunities and sometimes three), and it is necessary to be a Scholar in order to be competent to be a candidate