George Biddell Airy

A short time ago the writer had occasion to rummage among the archives of the Royal Astronomical Society in London to consult, if possible, the original manuscripts left by one Stephen Groombridge, an English astronomer of the good old days, who died in eighteen thirty-two.

It was known that they had been filed away about a generation ago by the late Sir George Airy, who was Astronomer Royal of England between the years eighteen thirty-five and eighteen eighty-one.

After a long search a large and dusty box was found and opened.

It was filled with documents of which the topmost was in Sir George's own handwriting and began substantially as follows: List of articles within this box.

Astronomical precision can no further go.

He had listed even the list itself.

Truly Airy was rightly styled Prince of Precisions.

A worthy Astronomer Royal was he to act under the royal warrant of Charles the Second who established the office in sixteen seventy-five.

So it is that these men, who have built up the most sure and most solid of all the sciences, refuse to invite others to join them in vain speculation.

The writer has therefore in this short history tried to follow that great master Airy, whose pupil he was, and the key to whose character was exactness and accuracy, and he recognizes that science is impotent except in her own limited sphere.

It has been necessary to curtail many parts of the history in the attempt, perhaps a hopeless one, to lay before the reader in a limited space enough about each age to illustrate its tone and spirit, the ideals of the workers, the gradual addition of new points of view, and of new means of investigation.

It would indeed be a pleasure to entertain the hope that these pages might, among new recruits, arouse an interest in the greatest of all the sciences, or that those who have handled the theoretical or practical side might be led by them to read in the original some of the classics of astronomy.

He put the traditions into writing.

Thales, 639-546 BC, is said to have predicted an eclipse, which caused much alarm, and ended the battle between the Medes and the Lydians.

Airy fixed the date May 28th, 585 BC, but other modern astronomers give different dates.

Thales went to Egypt to study science, and learned from its priests the length of the year, which was kept a profound secret, and the signs of the zodiac and the positions of the solstices.