Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy by George Biddell Airy
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page 32 of 525 (06%)
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however at the end of my first three terms I laid these aside.
"The College Lectures began on Oct. 22: Mr Evans at 9 on the Hippolytus, and Mr Peacock at 10 on Euclid (these being the Assistant Tutors on Mr Hustler's side): and then I felt myself established. "I wrote in a day or two to my uncle Arthur Biddell, and I received from him a letter of the utmost kindness. He entered gravely on the consideration of my prospects, my wants, &c.: and offered at all times to furnish me with money, which he thought my father's parsimonious habits might make him unwilling to do. I never had occasion to avail myself of this offer: but it was made in a way which in no small degree strengthened the kindly feelings that had long existed between us. "I carefully attended the lectures, taking notes as appeared necessary. In Mathematics there were geometrical problems, algebra, trigonometry (which latter subjects the lectures did not reach till the terms of 1820). Mr Peacock gave me a copy of Lacroix's Differential Calculus as translated by himself and Herschel and Babbage, and also a copy of their Examples. At this time, the use of Differential Calculus was just prevailing over that of Fluxions (which I had learnt). I betook myself to it with great industry. I also made myself master of the theories of rectangular coordinates and some of the differential processes applying to them, which only a few of the best of the university mathematicians then wholly possessed. In Classical subjects I read the Latin (Seneca's) and English Hippolytus, Racine's Phèdre (which my sister translated for me), and all other books to which I was referred, Aristotle, Longinus, Horace, Bentley, Dawes &c., made verse translations of the Greek Hippolytus, and was |
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