The Day We Found the Universe

by Marcia Bartusiak

  75 “Thank you for taking so much pains with the garden!”: LWA, Lowell to Slipher, May 26, 1902.

  75 “Your vegetables came all right and delighted me hugely”: LWA, Lowell to Slipher, July 7, 1902.

  75 eventually becoming a virtuoso … watery Mars: Hoyt (1996), pp. 129–45.

  76 no sign at all: Not until the 1960s did astronomers confirm that water vapor in the Martian atmosphere was more than a thousand times less than the amount found in Earth's atmosphere, far lower than what Slipher could possibly have measured in the early 1900s with his equipment.

  77 gas existed in the seemingly empty space between the stars: Smith (1994), p. 52.

  77 “Dear Mr. Slipher, I would like to have you take with your red sensitive plates the spectrum of a white nebula”: LWA, Lowell to Slipher, February 8, 1909.

  77 “I do not see much hope of our getting the spectrum”: LWA, Slipher to Lowell, February 26, 1909.

  77 Campbell at the Lick Observatory had recently written yet another article critical of the Lowell Observatory: The article was Campbell (1908), 560–62. According to John C. Duncan, then a graduate student at Lick working on his thesis, two astronomers at Lick had “charted several stars not seen there by Lowell … from what I can gather Campbell is preparing a bunch of fireworks to shoot off in the various periodicals. In all probability there will be much entertainment for those who enjoy scientific argument.” (LWA, Duncan to Slipher, September 13, 1908.) Despite these occasional interobservatory tussles, Campbell and Slipher generally maintained a cordial correspondence, most often discussing equipment.

  77 to see 173 stars in a given field of the sky, where Lick's 36-incher could see only 161: P. Lowell (1905), 391–92.

  77 “I have come to the conclusion”: LWA, Slipher to Miller, October 18, 1908.

  78 “This plate of mine”: LWA, Slipher to Lowell, December 3, 1910.

  78 “there is no more pressing need at present”: Smith (1994), p. 54.

  79 “It is not really very good”: LWA, Slipher to Lowell, September 26, 1912.

  79 November 15 observation details: LWA, Spectrogram Record Book II, September 24, 1912, to July 28, 1913, pp. 34–37.

  79 December 3 and 4 observation details: Ibid., pp. 61–62.

  79 high-voltage induction coils: Hall (1970a), p. 85.

  80 “encouraging results or (I should say) indications”: LWA, Slipher to Lowell, December 19, 1912.

  80 “I congratulate you on this fine bit of work”: LWA, Lowell to Slipher, December 24, 1912.

  80 “would doubtless impress all these observers”: LWA, Slipher to Lowell, December 19, 1912.

  81 On a scale from 1 to 10: LWA, Douglass to Lowell, January 14, 1895.

  81 December 29–31 observation details: LWA, Spectrogram Record Book II, September 24, 1912, to July 28, 1913, pp. 69–70.

  81 “I feel safe to say here that the velocity bids fair to come out unusually large”: LWA, Slipher to Lowell, January 2, 1913.

  81 spectrocomparator operation: Slipher (1917b), p. 405.

  81 calculations to convert the measured shift: LWA, V. M. Slipher Working Papers, Box 4, Folder 4-9.

  82 He also sent a print of the spectrum to Edward Fath: LWA, Slipher to Fath, January 18, 1913.

  82 “the shift has no direct bearing”: Fath (1908), p. 75.

  82 today, with far better equipment, astronomers measure Andromeda approaching us at 301 kilometers per second: See I. D. Karachentsev and O. G. Kashibadze (2006), 7.

  82 “agree as closely as could be expected”: LWA, Slipher to Lowell, February 3, 1913.

  82 publish his brief account: Slipher (1913).

  82 “It looks to me as though you have found a gold mine”: LWA, Miller to Slipher, June 9, 1913.

  82 “beauty”: LWA, Wolf to Slipher, February 21, 1913.

  82 “It is hard to attribute it to anything but Doppler shift”: LWA, Frost to Slipher, October 23, 1913.

  82 “Your high velocity for [the] Andromeda Nebula is surprising in the extreme”: LWA, Campbell to Slipher, April 9, 1913.

  83 “I had planned to get at this work years ago”: LWA, Wright to Slipher, August 19, 1914.

  83 “It looks as if you had made a great discovery”: LWA, Lowell to Slipher, February 8, 1913.

  83 “Spectrograms of spiral nebulae are becoming more laborious”: LWA, Slipher Papers, Hoyt-V. M. Box, Report F4, titled “Spectrographic Observations of Nebulae and Star Clusters.”

  83 “heavy and the accumulation of results slow”: Slipher (1913), p. 57.

  83 “telescopic object of great beauty”: LWA, Slipher Working Papers, Box 4, Folder 4-4.

  83 “no less than three times that of the great Andromeda Nebula”: Ibid.

  84 “When I got the velocity of the Andr. N. I went slow”: LWA, Slipher to Miller, May 16, 1913.

  84 dust clouds illuminated by reflected starlight: LWA, Slipher to J. C. Duncan, December 29, 1912.

  84 “undergoing a strange disintegration”: LWA, Slipher to E. Hertzsprung, May 8, 1914.

  84 “more numerous in, rather than outside, the Galaxy”: LWA, Slipher to Miller, May 16, 1913.

  84 “I leaned against it”: Hall (1970a), p. 85.

  84 his exposures often ran twenty to forty hours: Slipher (1917b), p. 404.

  84 “With such prolonged exposures the accumulation of plates”: LWA, Slipher to Lowell, May 4, 1913.

  84 “It is our problem now and I hope we can keep it”: LWA, Slipher to Lowell, May 16, 1913.

  85 “My harty [sic] congratulations”: LWA, Hertzsprung to Slipher, March 14, 1914.

  85 “It is a question in my mind”: LWA, Slipher to Hertzsprung, May 8, 1914.

  85 Slipher inwardly feared … Let the work speak for itself: Strauss (2001), p. 244.

  85 confident of what he was seeing: AIP, interview of Henry Giclas by Robert Smith on August 12, 1987.

  85 “Spectrographic Observations of Nebulae”: Popular Astronomy 23 (1915): 21– 24.

  86 “about 25 times the average stellar velocity”: Ibid., p. 23.

  86 his fellow astronomers rose to their feet and gave him a resounding ovation: Smith (1982), p. 19.

  86 “Let me congratulate you upon the success of your hard work”: LWA, Campbell to Slipher, November 2, 1914.

  87 “I am … glad to have your kind offer”: LWA, Slipher to Edwin Frost, October 22, 1914.

  87 enlisted the help of a mathematician: LWA, Slipher Working Papers, Box 4, Folder 4-16.

  87 “It has for a long time been suggested that the spiral nebulae are stellar systems”: Slipher (1917b), p. 409.

  87 “scattering” in some way: Ibid., p. 407.

  87 By 1925, forty-five spiral nebulae velocities were pegged with assurance, and it was Slipher who had measured nearly all of them: Sandage (2004), p. 499.

  88 he noticed a particular progression to the stampede outward: Wirtz (1922).

  88 a term they labeled K: Use of the K term in spiral nebulae redshift studies was introduced in 1916 by Lick Observatory astronomer George Paddock, who thought the correction would no longer be needed once a sufficient number of observations were made. Others, like Wirtz, swiftly adopted the convention. See Paddock (1916). The K term was actually first used by stellar astronomers. Astronomers were finding that the value for the motion of the Sun, its speed and direction through the galaxy, could change depending on the celestial object—a particular star or nebula—that was used to gauge it. To bring them into agreement, astronomers introduced the K correction term. By the 1960s, with improved measurements, this “K- effect” for stars silently disappeared from the astronomical literature.

  6. It Is Worthy of Notice

  90 Ancient Persians called the biggest one Al Bakr: The Large Magellanic Cloud was named Al Bakr by the noted Persian astronomer Al-Sûfi in his Book of Fixed Stars, written in 964. While not visible from northern Persia, it was visible to Middle Eastern peoples farther south, near the strait of Bab el Mandeb.

  90 “two clouds of mist”: Nowell
(1962), p. 127.

  91 “capable of doing as much and as good routine work”: Pickering (1898), p. 4.

  92 These women “computers” … photographic magnitude: Jones and Boyd (1971), pp. 388–90.

  92 “He treated [the computers] as equals in the astronomical world”: Ibid., p. 390.

  93 Leavitt grew up in Massachusetts, within a big and supportive family: Johnson (2005), pp. 25–26. Many of the personal details of Leavitt's life are drawn from George Johnson's excellent biography of Henrietta Leavitt, the most comprehensive review of her life to date.

  93 “For light amusements, she appeared to care little”: Bailey (1922), p. 197.

  94 “For this I should be willing to pay thirty cents an hour”: Johnson (2005), pp. 31–32.

  95 “variable-star ‘fiend’”: Ibid., p. 37.

  95 one of the first and brightest discovered: The English astronomer John Goodricke first noticed the variable brightness of δ Cephei in 1784. An astronomy prodigy (and also deaf like Leavitt), he won the Royal Society's prestigious Copley medal at the age of nineteen for his work on eclipsing binary stars. He died three years later of pneumonia.

  95 “As a rule, they are faint during the greater part of the time”: Leavitt (1908), p. 107.

  95 “It is worthy of notice”: Ibid.

  97 “A remarkable relation between the brightness of these variables and the length of their periods will be noticed”: Leavitt and Pickering (1912), p. 1.

  98 “masterpiece”: Rubin (2005), p. 1817.

  98 “to work, not to think”: Payne-Gaposchkin (1984), p. 149.

  98 “It is to be hoped, also, that the parallaxes [essentially, distances] of some variables of this type may be measured”: Leavitt and Pickering (1912), p. 3.

  98 the cold aggravated her hearing condition: Johnson (2005), p. 31.

  98 observatory's prime function was to collect and classify data: Jones and Boyd (1971), p. 369.

  98 quickly assigned Leavitt another task: Johnson (2005), pp. 56–57.

  98 “a harsh decision, which condemned a brilliant scientist to uncongenial work”: Payne-Gaposchkin (1984), p. 146.

  99 “[It's] of enormous importance in the present discussions”: HUA, Shapley to Leavitt, May 22, 1920.

  99 “Miss Leavitt had no understudy competent to take up her work”: HUA, Shapley to Frederick Seares, December 13, 1921.

  99 nominate her for a Nobel Prize in physics: Johnson (2005), p. 118.

  7. Empire Builder

  103 at most around 20,000 to 30,000 light-years wide: Smith (1982), pp. 58–60.

  104 “owe all to Hale and his dreams”: Wright (1966), p. 14.

  104 Pickering discovered women and Hale discovered money: Rubin (2005), p. 1817.

  104 “astronomical research with a feeling of awe”: Hale (1898), p. 651.

  105 confirmed that the element carbon resided in the Sun: Wright (1966), p. 59.

  105 “reaching up toward the heavens in the great dome”: Ibid., p. 71.

  105 “I would not consider [joining the faculty] for a moment”: Ibid., p. 92.

  107 “The donor could have no more enduring monument” … “send the bill to me”: Ibid., pp. 96–98.

  107 “the embodiment and representative of corruption in municipal affairs”: Jones and Boyd (1971), p. 429.

  107 “giants were plotting, fighting, dreaming on every hand”: Dreiser and Booth (1916), p. 172.

  107 “Mr. Yerkes, when he took the matter in hand …”; “… shortly be licked”: Osterbrock (1984), p. 185.

  108 “there may be some who view with disfavor”: Keeler (1897), p. 749.

  108 grinding the mirror and designing its support system: Ritchey (1897).

  108 The descendant of Irish immigrant craftsmen … reflectors were the instruments of astronomy's future: Osterbrock (1993), pp. 33–37.

  108 reputation as a cantankerous cuss: Sandage (2004), pp. 96–97.

  109 “The possibility of having you for a neighbor”: HP, Keeler to Hale, February 5, 1899.

  109 “Wilson's Peak”: Wilson's Peak was named after Benjamin Davis Wilson, who in the 1850s was the first nonnative to explore the mountain, which was situated near his orchards and winery. Wilson was the grandfather of General George S. Patton Jr.

  109 “the place”: Osterbrock (1984), p. 350.

  109 Harvard briefly considered setting up a permanent telescope there: Wright (1966), p. 165.

  110 “to encourage investigation, research and discovery”: Ibid., p. 159.

  110 “seemed almost too good to be true”: Ibid.

  110 surpassed the funds then endowed for research at all American universities combined: Hetherington (1996), p. 104.

  110 start work on the mountain: Wright (1966), pp. 187–88.

  110 His mistress, the Los Angeles socialite Alicia Mosgrove: Osterbrock (1993), p. 74.

  110 “an inner excitement—a higher degree of interest—a higher degree of suffering”: Wright (1966), p. 198.

  110 only a few farmhouses and barns nearby: Adams (1947), p. 223.

  110 Jasper, Pinto, Duck, and Maude: Ibid., p. 218.

  111 hundreds of tons of material were hauled up: Sandage (2004), pp. 165–67.

  111 no imperfection extended farther than two millionths of an inch: Wright (1966), p. 228.

  112 Hale decided he would not follow the Lick Observatory model: Sheehan and Osterbrock (2000), p. 101.

  112 “Hale was never so happy”: Adams (1947), p. 223.

  112 to see “the woods” instead of the trees: Wright, Warnow, and Weiner (1972), p. 273.

  112 with all astronomers required to wear coat and tie: AIP, interview of Allan Sandage by Spencer Weart on May 22 and 23, 1978.

  113 “partly because of the strong influence of Dr. Hale's remarkable personality”: HL, Walter Adams Papers, Box 1, Folder 1.15, “Autobiographical Notes.”

  113 Harlow Shapley showed up fully prepped … “Please come to Mount Wilson”: Shapley (1969), pp. 44–45.

  8. The Solar System Is Off Center and Consequently Man Is Too

  114 “I have looked at some cluster plates a little”: HUA, Shapley to Russell, May 20, 1914.

  114 “He is much more venturesome”: HUA, Hale to A. Lawrence Lowell, March 29, 1920.

  115 “keep the rhythm going”: Shapley (1969), p. 11.

  115 “The St. Louis Globe-Democrat was our chief contact”: Ibid., p. 5.

  115 refused admission … had always desired: Ibid., p. 12. On May 3, 1963, the town of Carthage, Missouri, celebrated “Harlow Shapley Day,” in honor of its most famous citizen. Along with a parade of thirty floats and fourteen marching bands, the high school, which had rejected Shapley's admission fifty-seven years earlier, gave him an honorary diploma. See Hoagland (1965), pp. 424–25.

  115 “So there I was”: Shapley (1969), p. 17. Martha Shapley, in some remembrances after her husband's death, said that “the story about ‘Archaeology/Astronomy’ in the catalogue was a H.S. joke.” HUA, Martha Shapley's Notes on His [Shapley's] Life.

  115 He actually was in need of a job … with honors: Shapley (1969), pp. 17–21.

  115 “thinks about what he is doing”: DeVorkin (2000), p. 104.

  116 accept this rising star: Ibid.

  116 specialized in eclipsing binaries: Shapley (1969), p. 25.

  116 “wild Missourian”: Ibid., p. 31.

  116 “worse than log tables”: HL, Seares Papers, Shapley to Seares, December 26, 1912.

  117 “his cane to sweep the undergraduates out of their path”: DeVorkin (2000), p. 105.

  117 helped open doors for Shapley to become a staff astronomer: HL, Seares Papers, Seares to Shapley, April 27, 1912.

  117 salary of $90 a month, plus free board on the mountain: HUA, Hale to Shapley, November 7, 1912.

  117 happily computed eclipsing binary orbits: Shapley (1969), p. 49.

  117 “Just killed a 3 ft. rattlesnake”: Hoge (2005), p. 4.

  117 “We had to be rugged in those days”: Shapley (1969), p
. 51.

  117 Adriaan van Maanen, the latter of whom first arrived at Mount Wilson in 1911 as a volunteer assistant and remained on as a staff member for thirty-five years: Adams (1947), p. 294.

  117 “A discussion with him was like a rousing game of ping-pong”: Payne-Gaposchkin (1984), p. 155.

  118 “A generous supporter, a stimulating companion”: Ibid., p. 156.

  118 so regular in his habits … cigarette stand: Sutton (1933b).

  118 “I feel very sure that if I should go away”: HUA, Shapley to George Monk, January 28, 1918.

  118 “to make measures of stars in globular clusters”: Shapley (1969), p. 41.

  118 he had begun discovering large numbers of variables: Historian Horace Smith suggests that Bailey found enough Cepheids in Omega Centauri, the largest globular cluster in the Milky Way, to have discerned a crude period-luminosity relation six years before Henrietta Leavitt's first suggestion of such a rule. But Bailey was more focused on gathering data than interpreting it and so never made the connection. See Smith (2000), pp. 190–91.

  118 “became synonyms”: Shapley (1969), p. 90.

  118 “I have not intended to intrude upon your field”: HUA, Shapley to S. I. Bailey, January 30, 1917.

  119 “I hope you will appreciate the fact”: HUA, Bailey to Shapley, February 15, 1917.

  119 Bailey was primarily a data gatherer: Smith (2000), pp. 194–95.

  119 a trait enhanced during his apprenticeship with Russell, who advocated problem-driven research: See DeVorkin (2000).

  119 was not known until the 1600s: The German astronomer Johann Abraham Ihle in 1665 discovered the first globular cluster, later labeled M22 by Charles Messier, while observing Saturn. The cluster is situated within the constellation Sagittarius.

  119 “It is quite obvious that a globular cluster”: Shapley (1915a), p. 213.

  120 These included Omega Centauri (the biggest of them all): Recent evidence suggests that Omega Centauri, which was always atypical, is not a true globular cluster but rather a dwarf galaxy stripped of its outermost stars.

  121 “Her discovery … is destined to be one of the most significant results of stellar astronomy”: HUA, Shapley to Pickering, September 24, 1917.

  121 too small to be discernible by ground-based telescopes: Space telescopes, specially designed to do parallax work, have extended distance measurements out farther.