Talk:Edwin Hubble

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what are some bad things about this guy?!

Well, he's distantly related to me. But that's not really his fault. --Angr/comhrá 20:51, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

According to Bill Bryson's A_Short_History_of_Nearly_Everything, a couple of his achievements before his scientific part of the CV are a lie. Also his body was never buried since his wife refused to have a funeral, and nobody know what happened to it. So what is true now? --tokyoahead 6 July 2005 18:47 (UTC)

  • As Hubble was a dedicated scientist it is entirely possilbe and maybe probable that he donated his body to science. The nearest Medical Schools at the time were at USC and UCLA. I will try to research this.T.E. Goodwin 01:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

At Italian version of the Hubble photo is marked as pulic domain. If it's so, we should upload to the commons.-- Harp 14:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Unmarked Grave

I created the Category "People buried in unmarked graves" just for him and Crazy Horse! I think this a good category to have. "People whose graves intentionally cannot be located" seems like a bit wordy... any suggestions, then? The Dogandpony 20:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

People whose remains have an unknown fate? "People buried in unmarked graves" is appropriate for, say, Mozart, because we know he was buried in one. But with Hubble, we (apparently--no sources are cited for this claim) know he wanted to be buried in an unmarked grave, but that doesn't mean his wife went through with his wishes. She never said what she did with him. Angr (talk • contribs) 21:07, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Even though its just conjecture, couldn't you assume his wife had him buried in an unmarked grave? I mean, it seems clear that she just didn't tell anyone because they would eventually erect a monument for a person so famous.
No, you couldn't. It's just as easy to assume (and IMO more plausible) that she had him cremated and then scattered his ashes. But so long as we don't know for sure, we can't say anything about it one way or another. Angr (t • c) 23:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I am surprised that nobody has thought of researching his Los Angeles County Death Certificate. It is a matter of public record what disposition was made of his body along with the cause of death.T.E. Goodwin 01:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Big Bang Credit

"This discovery later resulted in formulation of the Big Bang theory by George Gamow and Fred Hoyle." Is this inacurate? If you click on the link for Fred Hoyle it tells you he was opposed to the Big Bang theory. He did give it the name, but it seems a little generous to give him credit for a theory he merely named and then fought his entire life. --I would put my name, but I don't have an account.

Actually neither Gamow or Hoyle formulated the Big Bang Theory. The theory was originally proposed by Georges Lemaître. Gamow developed the theory in more detail and predicted the microwave cosmic background radiation and Hoyle was a vocal opponent of the Theory. Ironically, Hoyle was responsible for the name of the theory, but he meant it as a derisive comment on the theory... It must have haunted him the rest of his life to constantly hear people use his name for a theory he despised. Anyway, I am going to correct the article. Bill McHale 21:47, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I have a quick question, I understand that Friedman came up with the solution to GR that showed that the Universe must be expanding or contracting. However, reading the other wikipedia articles on the Big Bang and on Friedman, as well as other research, I don't see where he actually suggested the idea that the universe started as a 'primordial atom' as Lemaître did. I have no problem with crediting Friedman, but I would like to see some more substantial evidence. Anyone? Bill McHale 17:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date of galaxy discovery?

The 1925 article claims that Hubble made his announcement on 1st January of that year, while this article claims 30th December 1924. GreyKnight 04:55, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The entry in 1925 was incorrect and I've removed it. For confirmation see 1924 in science and December 30. --Bruce1ee 06:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps he overdid it on New Year's Eve and forgot he'd already announced it. ;-) GreyKnight 07:46, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Hubble's paper was indeed read at the joint meeting of the American Astronomical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science by Henry Norris Russell on January 1, 1925. Hubble was not present. See "Thirty-Third Meeting of the American Astronomical Society." Popular Astronomy 33 (1925): 158-68; 246-55; 292-305. (Submitted by Marcia Bartusiak)

Ernst Opik used an early version of the Tully Fisher Relation in his 1922 paper in which he estimated the distance of M31 to be outside our Galaxy. Since his paper was released before Hubble's, why is he not credited with the discovery? Samwedge (talk) 22:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Interesting point. Of course, Hubble wasn't working in isolation and the idea that spiral nebulae were other stellar systems existed before his work. I had a look at the paper by Opik and it seems that he used some arguments based on the virial theorem to get a distance and mass for M32, from which he concluded that it was outside our galaxy (in agreement with previous estimates, although he doesn't say by whom) and likely to be a 'stellar universe'. Hubble, on the other hand, was the first to observe individual stars in spiral nebulae and thus prove beyond reasonable doubt that they were external galaxies, which I suppose is why he gets the credit. Cosmo0 (talk) 18:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] citation needed

I marked a probably erroneous claim according to which Hubble "was one of the first to argue that the red shift of distant galaxies is due to the Doppler effect" with request for citation. I also added a ref. plus link to his famous 1929 paper. See also the citation in [1]. Harald88 19:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

In view of the lack of response and also the discussion below which suggests rather the inverse, I'll now remove that claim as per WP:CITE. Harald88 14:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Being that I just got to the table I will offer what I have at hand. In Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything he notes that he wasn't the first to state this fact but was essential to its understanding. Bryson said Hubble was trying to work out the size of the universe using Mt. Wilson's 100 inch telescope and by the early 1930's Hubble worked out that all galaxies are moving away from us. Speed and distance proportional. Ho = V/D. Whether all of that is true or not... beats me. But come on, that's a heck of an equation. I wish they had taught me that in High School. I'll bet it would have been the one, the singular equation, that I remembered. Source: A Short History of Nearly Everything, illustrated edition, page 163. JohnCub 00:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hubble's opinion about redshift

In addition, I notice that although this article is about Hubble, not Hubble's opinion about the interpretation of redshift is discussed but Einsteins opinion. I propose to dig up a reliable source about Hubble, and to replace Einstein 's opinion by Hubble's opinion in this article on Hubble (if lacking in Einstein, Einstein's opinion may be added there).

I now found back a Wikipedia citation about this matter:

'Hubble himself, however, did not believe that the redshift meant expansion. "To his dying day", Sandage tells us in his presentation at the centennial celebration of Hubble's birth, "Hubble did not accept that redshift meant expansion." Instead he thought it was due to some unknown cause.- http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/1996/sandage_hubble.html '

I note that the above reference may serve as a good source for this article as a whole, but it's a misreference to the cited phrases(!) In the above article the author simply shows that he doesn't know this fact, leading him to ask why Hubble's writings show 'a lack of discussion of how the expansion relates to "beginnings" and why the lack of emphasis on [..] the age of the model [..] it is surprising to see none of this in Hubble's writings. '

-> What could have been the correct source of the citations above that answered Sandage's questions?

Harald88 17:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Following I have copied the correct test from Sandage's Hubble celebration paper here. Around 32 paragraphs in.

Copied from http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/1996/sandage_hubble.html

Hubble concluded that his observed log N(m) distribution showed a large departure from Euclidean geometry, provided that the effect of redshifts on the apparent magnitudes was calculated as if the redshifts were due to a real expansion. A different correction is required if no motion exists, the redshifts then being due to an unknown cause. Hubble believed that his count data gave a more reasonable result concerning spatial curvature if the redshift correction was made assuming no recession. To the very end of his writings he maintained this position, favouring (or at the very least keeping open) the model where no true expansion exists, and therefore that the redshift "represents a hitherto unrecognized principle of nature". This viewpoint is emphasized (a) in The Realm of the Nebulae, (b) in his reply (Hubble 1937a) to the criticisms of the 1936 papers by Eddington and by McVittie, and (c) in his 1937 Rhodes Lectures published as The Observational Approach to Cosmology (Hubble 1937b). It also persists in his last published scientific paper which is an account of his Darwin Lecture (Hubble 1953).

I mentioned this in the redshift article but I believe it was subsequently deleted and since I have been accused/implied of POV pushing ("mad ravings of a lunatic POV crusader") by the community and administration. But they have nothing to say about those accusations by some of your fellow editors. Finally, my edit mentioning what Sandage said was considered "nonsense" and "Irrelevant" by your most admired editors. I'm grateful that you finally got around to mentioning Hubbles opinion in the Hubble article.

Tommy Mandel 05:42, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the exact quote - for sure everyone agrees that Hubble's opinions are relevant in an article about himself. And I had not remarked those remarks of Sandage as I only looked in his section on redshift.
But now it's my turn to be mystified by Sandage: how could he, in the same article, explain why Hubble didn't favour the expansion interpretation, and still wonder why Hubble didn't discuss the relation between expansion and the beginnings? Do I miss something here?
Harald88 14:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
My guess is that Sandage believed in expansion and was wondering why Hubble disn't. But that is just a hunch. Tommy Mandel 15:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Hubble was an observationalist, not a theorist. He didn't take much stock in the abilities of the mathematical physicists to develop consistent explanations based on the physical principles of terrestrial mechanics. Even though Einstein's relativity was confirmed by the Eddington expedition, privately Hubble remained skeptical of general relativity (as did many other scientists who found the mathematics daunting). When Einstein famously visited Mt. Wilson, Hubble kept his skepticism to himself and did acknowledge that Einstein's work seemed to fit his data even if there may have been alternate explanations. There is a famous picture of Einstein and Hubble at Mount Wilson that should be in the public domain. I encourage somebody to dig it out and post it here. --ScienceApologist 16:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments; if you can provide another reference, that would be very useful!
Currently we have:
- http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/1996/sandage_hubble.html
- http://www.astronomycafe.net/anthol/expan.html
Harald88 19:07, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Decent start. You can continue by Googling Hubble. There are a number of good biographies on-line. --ScienceApologist 19:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
You commented and next put your similar own opinion in the wikipedia text:
"While Hubble maintained skepticism regarding the expansion interpretation, he never outright rejected it as seen in his letter to de Sitter."
I have not seen such an argument in a paper, it's almost certainly your (erroneous) original research. The article did not state that he "rejected" it. His letter to De Sitter was before his research based on which he took a more outspoken stand, as explained by Sandage and also in the article, but which you edited in such a way that that fact was obscured. Please don't do that again. Harald88 17:20, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

It is you who are reading between the lines of Sandage's paper. Read the original papers. They are clear that Hubble was just skeptical. --ScienceApologist 19:28, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I didn't "read between the lines" but actually copied his lines into the article and then reworked them into a paraphrase. If you disagree, we can simply quote that according to Sandage, Hubble believed that his count data gave a more reasonable result concerning spatial curvature if the redshift correction was made assuming no recession. To the very end of his writings he maintained this position, favouring (or at the very least keeping open) the model where no true expansion exists, and therefore that the redshift "represents a hitherto unrecognized principle of nature. Harald88 07:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Interesting play on words, first it was that recession velocity increased in proportion to the distance between galaxies, and when that didn't work, then it was modified to velocity increases in proportion to the space between galaxies. All this, yet gravitaionally bound objects show no expansion as evidenced by stable orbits. Come on, either all space is expanding or no space is expanding. Tommy Mandel 20:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

All space is expanding, but bound objects see the expansion as an unmeasurable correction to the coordinate forces holding them together. Thus galaxies do not expand but the space between them does. --ScienceApologist 21:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't accept that. Space is space whether it is inside or outside a galaxy. What you are really saying is that observations indicate that expansion cannot be detected at the local level (so therefore it must have somehow been corrected out). Seems to me that expansion affects the physical in some ways and in other ways it has no effect. Remember that "space" is variously known as a scalar field, and this scalar field is everywhere. YOu are going to have to do a lot better convincing me that gravitaionally bound objects are immune to expansion other that a supposed "unmeasurable correction" Tommy Mandel 02:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

"Hubble did not accept that redshift meant expansion." Instead he thought it was due to some unknown cause."

On the scale of the galaxy (which is some 100 kiloparsecs) the expansion of space accounts for velocity of 7.2 meters per second. That's a correction on the orbital velocity of the galaxy of 300 kilometers per second. So you're looking at a difference of 2.4%, well witin the uncertainty of the velocity (+/- 10%) --ScienceApologist 03:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

See my comment above. Please keep focussed on Hubble, this article is not about Big Bang theory or alternatives but about Hubble's discoveries and opinions as well as what has been published about him. If any editor disagrees with Hubble's opinion or Sandage's opinion about Hubble, that's not relevant for the article. Even if Hubble believed that there is live on Mars, that is something to state and not to try to argue to the readers that he was right or wrong. Harald88 07:43, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Hubble's opinion was that the redshift-distance relation represented a new phenomenological development for our universe and he maintained a level of skepticism regarding the expansion model. However, if you read the Sandage article it is clear that Hubble was simply skeptical, he didn't dismiss the expansion model outright. Even after he executed his galaxy counts and published the paper that stated the data was inconsistent with an expanding universe, Hubble still did not come out and say that he "didn't believe in an expanding universe" but rather stated that his observations seemed to contradict the model. There is a big difference between maintaining skepticism regarding the expansion of space and saying that Hubble didn't believe in the expansion of space. --ScienceApologist 12:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Your use of language is definitely incompatible with mine, as the negation of "Hubble didn't believe it" can only be that Hubble believed it, which is in direct contradiction with "Hubble maintained skepticism". Nowhere was written in the article that he "dismissed the model outright". Thus, as discussed above, I now replace it by the full citation about which no argument is possible. Harald88 23:08, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] birth day

Hubble says that he was born on November 20. Nasa say so too, but his biography sight says its the 29th. His obituary lists his birthday as November 20.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pulu (talk • contribs) 03:57, 21 November 2007

Google finds many references to his birthday being November 20, but the only site that gives November 29 is almost a word-for-word copy of the one mentioned above. The consensus seems to be that the former is correct. Of course, many sites may use Wikipedia as their primary source, which would skew the statistics. Incidentally, I'm not convinced the first link was actually written by Hubble - it looks fictional to me. Cosmo0 (talk) 15:03, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Practicing Law

I hate to rush right in and demand a citation to his practicing law but I have it on good authority that while he told people he was practicing law he was actually doing the High school teacher / basketball coach gig. My source is the book A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson page 160 of the Illustrated edition (Chapter 8 - Einstein's Universe, a few pages from the end of the chapter).

Is it appropriate to quote the text? Copyright law, much like astrophysics, is not my forte. Oh, and making those funny marks over the e's. That's not my forte either.  :P

Anyway, I figured I'd bring it up in case anyone could provide a citation. JohnCub 00:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


In 1913, Hubble returned from England and was admitted to the bar, setting up a small practice in Louisville Kentucky...[2]

He studied law as a Rhodes Scholar at Queens College in Oxford, England. A year after passing the bar exam, Hubble realized that his love of exploring the stars was greater than his attraction to law.[3]

But this is from the American Institute of Physics and is probably pretty reliable:

After three years at Oxford, Hubble returned to his family home in Louisville, Kentucky. He taught physics and Spanish at a high school and also became a member of the Kentucky bar, but never actually practiced law.[4].

So in summary: we know that he was definitely qualified to practice law in Kentucky, but he probably didn't practice much, if at all. Cosmo0 17:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with lead

This article does not have a lead section consistent with WP:Lead which says that the lead section of an article should be a short summary of the most important topics discussed in an article. In particular for an article on an important scientist, the lead should clearly state why he/she was an important figure. See the leads for featured articles like Alfred Russel Wallace, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Galileo for examples. It should not be necessary for me to read beyond the lead to know that he was the first to discover that there were other galaxies beyond the Milky Way or responsible for Hubbles law that describes the expansion of the universe. Other than the first sentence, the material currently in the lead should be moved to a section labeled biography (again see the other articles on scientists I mentioned). I would try and fix it myself (and I still might) but I really don't have ideal sources (just the ubiquitous Bryson) to be working this article. Otherwise it looks like it is shaping up nicely.Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:39, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I reorganized the article and moved the biographical material from the lead to a separate section. The lead may be a little short now, but it is a start.Rusty Cashman (talk) 07:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)