Reference
- Hubble, Edwin (Powell) (1889-1953)US astronomer who studied extragalactic nebulae and demonstrated them to be galaxies like our own. He found the first evidence for the expansion of the universe, in accordance with the cosmological theories of Georges Lemaître and Willem de Sitter, and his work led to an enormous expansion of our perception of the size of the universe.
Hubble was born in Marshfield, Missouri, on 20 November 1889. He went to high school in Chicago and then attended the University of Chicago where his interest in mathematics and astronomy was influenced by George Hale and Robert Millikan. After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1910, he became a Rhodes scholar at Queen's College, Oxford, where he took a degree in jurisprudence in 1912. When he returned to the USA in 1913, he was admitted to the Kentucky Bar, and he practised law for a brief period before returning to Chicago to take a research post at the Yerkes Observatory 1914-17.
In 1917 Hubble volunteered to serve in the US infantry and was sent to France at the end of World War I. He remained on active service in Germany until 1919, when he was able to return to the USA and take up the earlier offer made to him by Hale of a post as astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, where the 2.5-m/100-in reflecting telescope had only recently been made operational. Hubble worked at Mount Wilson for the rest of his career, and it was there that he carried out his most important work. His research was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II, when he served as a ballistics expert for the US War Department. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1940, and received the Presidential Medal for Merit in 1946. He was active in research until his last days, despite a heart condition, and died in San Marino, California, on 28 September 1953.
While Hubble was working at the Yerkes Observatory, he made a careful study of nebulae, and attempted to classify them into intra- and extragalactic varieties. At that time there was great interest in discovering what other structures, if any, lay beyond our Galaxy. The mysterious gas clouds, known as the smaller and larger Magellanic Clouds, which had first been systematically catalogued by Charles Messier and called ‘nebulae’, were good extragalactic candidates and were of great interest to Hubble. He had been particularly inspired by Henrietta Leavitt's work on the Cepheid variable stars in the Magellanic Clouds; and later work by Harlow Shapley, Henry Russell, and Ejnar Hertzsprung on the distances of these stars from the Earth had demonstrated that the universe did not begin and end within the confines of our Galaxy. Hubble's doctoral thesis was based on his studies of nebulae, but he found it frustrating because he knew that more definite information depended upon the availability of telescopes of greater light-gathering power and with better resolution...
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Perspectives
Hubble, Humason and the Big Bang
The story of Hubble and Humason is one for the ages--and in particular, the Cosmic Age. In this compelling book, science writer Ron Voller digs deep into how and why the two scientists continued to investigate their theory of universal expansion in the face of persistent doubt, contrary theories, and calamitous world events. The evolution of this dynamic duo's tenuous friendship and professional partnership is in many ways as intriguing as their groundbreaking work on the evolution of the universe. The book therefore traces their lives from their childhoods into their burgeoning careers, revealing how a World War and their own personal differences stood in the way of initial cooperation. It then shows how despite all this, the two opposites eventually came together in the pursuit of something far greater than themselves. This grand story is inextricably interwoven with that of Albert Einstein, Willem de Sitter, and other great physicists of the era, all of whom took part in the staggering quest to make sense of the Big Bang and what followed. "Edwin Hubble has often been considered as an island of sorts--a lone wolf of astronomy. But Voller's book shows otherwise, as he examines Milt Humason's essential contributions to our understanding of the expanding universe." - Daniel Lewis, Dibner Senior Curator, History of Science & Technology, The Huntington Library
Edwin Hubble
An exploration of Hubble's contributions, his personal successes, & the activities & views that sometimes annoyed others inside & outside the scientific community.
The Big Bang Theory
If learning about the origin of the universe wasn't enticing enough, this title guides readers through the trials of its discovery by Edwin Hubble, after whom the Hubble space telescope is named. Chronicling Hubble's early years at the University of Chicago, to his discovery of spiral nebulae, to his later research into the expanding universe, readers experience Hubble's successes and failures in the discovery of the Big Bang. This title can serve as inspiration to young people interested in science to never stop dreaming big and sometimes, as in Hubble's case, dreaming as big as the universe.
Cosmology and the Cosmological Constant
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window
Investigate what Einstein reportedly called his "biggest blunder": his insistence that the universe is static, despite the prediction of general relativity that space is either expanding or contracting. Explore why general relativity is inconsistent with a static universe, and chart astronomer Edwin Hubble's pioneering observations that prove we live in an expanding cosmos.
Edwin Hubble
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Edwin Hubble searched the heavens for a specific type of star in order to measure the size of the universe. Livio describes some of Hubble's discoveries.
The Sombrero Galaxy: An Island Universe
Online Resources
- Cautious revolutionaries: Maxwell, Planck, HubbleThree scientists exemplified the cautious behavior that we might like all scientists to display: indeed, they were so critical of their own ideas that they risked losing credit for them. Nevertheless, they finally earned at least as much fame as they deserved, leaving historians to wonder about what they really believed. Maxwell initially rejected the kinetic theory of gases because two of its predictions disagreed with experiments; later he revived the theory, showed that one of those experiments had been misinterpreted, and eventually became known as one of the founders of the modern theory. Planck seems to have intended his 1900 quantum hypothesis as a mathematical device, not a physical discontinuity; later he limited it to the emission (not absorption) of radiation, thereby discovering “zero-point energy.” Eventually he accepted the physical quantum hypothesis and became known as its discoverer. Hubble (with Humason) established the distance–velocity law, which others used as a basis for the expanding universe theory; later he suggested that redshifts may not be due to motion and appeared to lean toward a static model in place of the expanding universe.
- The exploration of spacehe article highlights the space exploration of Edwin Powell Hubble, an American astronomer. It says that astronomy is the study of universe: the study of its structure and its behavior. It further states that the exploration fall into three phases, including the picture of the solar system, the emersion of the picture of a stellar system and the conquest of the outer space.
- Extragalactic distance scales: H0 from Hubble (Edwin) to Hubble (Hubble telescope)In the first fifty years after Edwin Hubble announced a linear relationship between distances and redshifts of external galaxies, the accepted value of his constant dropped by (or the Universe expanded and aged by) a factor of 5 to 10. More recently, different groups, often using nearly the same data, have passionately defended distance scales that differ by about a factor of two.
- Hubble cleared: a painstaking study absolves US astronomer Edwin Hubble of censoring a Belgian rivalEdwin Hubble is that relatively rare thing among dead astronomers--a global household name. He owes his status mainly to the NASA space telescope named in his honour. So when researchers suggested this year that Hubble might have censored the work of a rival to secure credit for the groundbreaking discovery that the Universe is expanding, they triggered a fuss that was far removed from the usual arcane wrangling over historical research priority.
Which Universe Is Ours?
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowInvestigate what Einstein called his "greatest mistake"--his rejection of his own theory's prediction that spacetime should be dynamic and evolving. Chart the work of a group of scientists, including Alexander Friedman, Georges Lemaitre, and Edwin Hubble, who advanced the realization that our universe is expanding from an apparent big bang.