Edwin P. Hubble and the Transformation of Cosmology
DOI: 10.1063/1.881232
In the first three decades of this century the modern science of cosmology was forged from general relativity theory and new observing methods and instruments, particularly large optical telescopes perched thousands of feet above sea level in California and Arizona. These radical changes in the theoretical and observational tools used by astronomers, physicists and mathematicians accompanied revolutionary changes in cosmology itself. The new cosmology of the early 1930s included two key cognitive features absent from the cosmology of the turn of the century: first, the existence of galaxies outside our own stellar system that are visible in Earth‐based telescopes, and second, that these galaxies evince the expansion of the universe.
This article is only available in PDF format
References
1. R. W. Smith, The Expanding Universe: Astronomy’s ‘Great Debate’ 1900–1931, Cambridge U.P., New York (1982);
N. Hetherington, Hist. Stud. Phys. Sci. 13, 41 (1982);
D. R. Osterbrock, R. S. Brashear, J. A. Gwinn, Mercury, January‐February, 2 (1990);
D. R. Osterbrock, R. S. Brashear, J. A. Gwinn, “Self‐Made Cosmologist: The Education of Edwin Hubble,” in The Evolution of the Universe of Galaxies: The Edwin Hubble Centenial Symposium, R. G. Kron, ed., Astron. Soc. Pacific, San Francisco (1990), to be published;
D. E. Osterbrock, “The Observational Approach to Cosmology: US Observatories Pre‐World War II,” in Modern Cosmology in Retrospect, B. Bertotti, R. Balbinot, S. Bergia, A. Messina, eds., Cambridge U.P., New York (1990), to be published2. A. Clerke, Modern Cosmogonies, Adam and Charles Black, London (1905), p. 15
3. S. L. Jaki, The Milky Way: An Elusive Road for Science, David and Charles, Newton Abbott (1973), p. 270
4. J. E. Keeler, Astrophys. J. 11, 325 (1900). https://doi.org/ASJOAB
See also D. E. Osterbrock, James E. Keeler, Pioneer American Astrophysicist and the Development of American Astrophysics, Cambridge U.P., New York (1984);
D. E. Osterbrock, J R. Gustafson, W. J. Shiloh Unruh, Eye on the Sky: Lick Observatory’s First Century, U. California P., Berkeley (1988)5. J. A. Bennett, in Human Implications of Scientific Advance, E. G. Forbes, ed., Edinburgh U.P., Edinburgh (1978), p. 553
6. E. P. Hubble, The Realm of Nebulae, Oxford U.P., Oxford (1936), p. ix.
7. V. M. Slipher, Lowell Observatory Bull. 58 (1913).
See also W. G. Hoyt, Biog. Mem. Natl. Acad. Sci. 52, 411 (1980)8. W. W. Campbell, letter to V. M. Slipher, 2 November 1914, Lowell Observatory Archives. On Slipher’s results from the mid‐1910s,
see V. M. Slipher, Pop. Astron. 23, 21 (1915);
V. M. Slipher, Proc. Am. Philos. Soc. 56, 403 (1917).https://doi.org/PAPCAA9. J. H. Jeans, Problems of Cosmogony and Stellar Dynamics, Cambridge U.P., Cambridge, England (1919), ch. 9 and 10
10. E. P. Hubble, Pub. Astron. Soc. Pac. 35, 261 (1923);
letter to H. Shapley, 5 July 1922, Shapley papers, Harvard Univ. Archives11. M. A. Hoskin, J. Hist. Astron. 7, 4753 (1976). https://doi.org/JHSAA2
See also ref. 12, pp. 42–45.12. Smith, The Expanding Universe, pp. 113–126
13. A. Friedmann, Z. Phys. 10, 377 (1922); https://doi.org/ZEPYAA
A. Friedmann, 21, 326 (1924)14. H. Kragh, Centaurus 2, 114 (1987).
15. G. Lemaitre, Ann. Soc. Sci. Bruxelles 47A, 49 (1927).
16. G. Lemaitre, Rev. Questions Sci. 129, 129 (1958).
17. E. Hubble, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 15, 168 (1929).
18. E. Hubble, M. Humason, Astrophys. J. 74, 43 (1931).https://doi.org/ASJOAB
19. A. S. Eddington, Month. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 90, 672 (1930).
20. A. S. Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, Cambridge U.P., Cambridge, England (1932), p. 85.
21. G. Lemaitre, Nature 128, 700 (1931).https://doi.org/NATUAS
22. J. North, The Measure of the Universe, Clarendon, Oxford (1965), p. 126.
More about the Authors
Robert W. Smith. National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Johns Hopkins University.
