George Biddell Airy: Quotes about understanding

George Biddell Airy was English mathematician and astronomer. Explore interesting quotes on understanding.
George Biddell Airy: 26 quotes0 likes

“It is not simply that a clear understanding is acquired of the movements of the great bodies which we regard as the system of the world, but it is that we are introduced to a perception of laws governing the motion of all matter, from the finest particle of dust to the largest planet or sun, with a degree of uniformity and constancy, which otherwise we could hardly have conceived. Astronomy is pre-eminently the science of order.”

George Biddell Airy

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)

“[T]he instrumental conceptions derived from the use of a common globe are sufficient, in almost every case, for the understanding of the instruments in an Observatory…”

George Biddell Airy

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)

“In conversing with persons who are not officially attached to Observatories or in other ways professionally cognizant of the technicalities of practical Astronomy but who nevertheless display great interest… these persons appear to regard the determination of measures like those of the distance of the Sun and Moon as mysteries beyond ordinary comprehension… [and] when persons well acquainted with the general facts of Astronomy are introduced into an Observatory, they are for the most part utterly unable to understand anything which they see…
The measure of the Moon's distance involves no principle more abstruse than the measure of the distance of a tree on the opposite bank of a river. The principles of construction of the best Astronomical instruments are as simple and as closely referred to matters of common school-education and familiar experience, as are those of the common globes, the steam engine, or the turning-lathe; the details are usually less complicated.”

George Biddell Airy

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)