George Biddell Airy was born July 27, 1801 at Alnwick in Northumberland (North of England). His family was rather modest, but thanks to the generosity of his uncle Arthur Biddell, he went to study at Trinity College (University of Cambridge). He was a brilliant student although being a sizar, ^[1] and finally graduated in 1823 as a senior wrangler. Three years later, he was elected to occupy the celebrated Lucasian chair of mathematics. Nevertheless, his salary as Lucasian professor was too small to marry Richarda, as her father said. So he applied for a new position. In 1828, Airy obtained the Plumian chair becoming professor of Astronomy and director of the new observatory at Cambridge. His first works at this time were about the mass of Jupiter and also about the irregular motions of Earth and Venus.

In 1834, Airy started his first mathematical studies on the diffraction phenomenon and optics. Due to the diffraction phenomenon, the image of a point through a telescope is actually a spot surrounded by rings of smaller intensity, this spot is now called the "Airy spot", the associated Airy function has nothing to do with the purpose of the present book.

In June 1835, Airy became the 7 ^th Royal Astronomer and director of the Greenwich observatory, succeeding John Pond. Under his administration, modern equipment was installed, leading the observatory to its worldwide fame assisted by the quality of its published data. Airy also introduced the study of sun spots and the...