"Extraneous government business": the Astronomer Royal as government scientist: George Airy and his work on the commissions of state and other bodies, 1838-1880

Details "Extraneous government business": the Astronomer Royal as government scientist: George Airy and his work on the commissions of state and other bodies, 1838-1880 "Extraneous government business": the Astronomer Royal as government scientist: George Airy and his work on the commissions of state and other bodies, 1838-1880

Dec 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001jahh....4..143p&link_type=abstract

Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage (ISSN 1440-2807), Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 143-154 (2001).

Mathematics

Logic

Astronomer Royal, Commissions Of State, Government Science, Royal Observatory

Scientific paper

In the absence of a scientific civil service the governments of Victoria's reign had few public servants to consult when it came to the requirement for specialist scientific and technological advice - and this was at the height of the industrial revolution when the enormous changes wrought were affecting the whole population of Britain. So governments turned to one man of cast-iron probity and unparalleled credentials: George Airy. Though his formal scientific training was in mathematics and astronomy, not the engineering and thermodynamics that the industrial age might have called for, Airy gave of his time and energy to the full. But what were the purposes of the commissions? When did they sit? Who ran the Royal Observatory in Airy's absence? Only recently have the original papers in the RGO Archives been plumbed in any depth and the answers to these questions make an intriguing story.

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