The Day We Found the Universe
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160 An accomplished chef: Sandage (2004), p. 129.
160 “Van Maanen and I are in ill-favor because we do or try to do too much”: HUA, Shapley to G. Monk, January 28, 1918.
160 van Maanen always seemed to see this effect: Hetherington (1990b), p. 30.
160 Ritchey was then using Mount Wilson's 60-inch telescope … details never before captured: Ibid., pp. 31–33.
160 at first measured no variation but got permission from Ritchey to keep the plates to study them further: HP, van Maanen to Hale, May 2, 1916; Hale to Chamberlin, December 28, 1915.
160 he chose thirty-two stars … would be negligible: Hetherington (1990b), p. 35.
161 “If the results … could be taken at their face value”: Van Maanen (1916), pp. 219–20. John Duncan, just appointed director of the Wellesley College Observatory, in Massachusetts, took a long trip west to visit observatories in the summer of 1916. There he assisted in giving the new 100-inch mirror its first coat of silver and wrote Slipher that “van Maanen, who is a very enthusiastic Dutchman, has measured with the Blink some photographs of Messier 101 made some years apart and gets what seems to be certain evidence of a motion along the arms of the spiral.” LWA, Duncan to Slipher, July 14, 1916.
161 meant … the nebula's edge had to be traveling faster than the speed of light: Shapley (1919e), p. 266.
161 van Maanen followed all the precautions: Hetherington (1990b), p. 37.
161 “While the recent revival of the notion that spiral nebulae are mere distant constellations”: HP, Chamberlain to Hale, January 31, 1916.
161 “might indicate that these bodies are not as distant as is usually supposed to be the case”: Hetherington (1974b), pp. 52–53.
161 “So that we do not know yet if this is an island universe!”: HP, van Maanen to Hale, December 17, 1917.
162 “His wide experience in astrometric work”: HL, Walter Adams Papers, Adams to John C. Merriam, August 15, 1935.
162 “a much greater time interval will probably be necessary before nebular rotations can be definitely established”: Hetherington (1990b), p. 26.
162 “The mean of five measures each of which is not worth a damn”: LOA, Curtis Papers, Curtis to Campbell, July 11, 1922.
162 “entirely in agreement with some speculations in which I have recently been indulging”: Jeans (1917a), p. 60.
162 both van Maanen and Jeans began to calculate higher masses for the spirals: Smith (1982), p. 40.
164 seemed to imply his methods were valid: Hetherington (1990b), p. 42.
164 “would be so bold as to question the authenticity of the internal motions”: Smart (1924), p. 334.
164 “I finished … my measures of M51”: HUA, van Maanen to Shapley, May 23, 1921.
164 “Congratulations on the nebulous results!”: HUA, Shapley to van Maanen, June 8, 1921.
164 “I think that your nebular motions are taken seriously now”: HUA, Shapley to van Maanen, September 8, 1921.
164 “raise a strong objection to the ‘island-universe’ hypothesis”: Van Maanen (1921), p. 1.
164 “which, obviously, are extremely improbable”: Ibid., p. 5.
164 “a great number of very distant stars … crowded together [to] give the impression of nebulous objects”: Lundmark (1921), p. 324.
165 “speak for a large distance”: Ibid., p. 326.
165 Shapley began to feel sizable pressure: After Lundmark published a paper in 1922 criticizing some of Shapley's research, Shapley undiplomatically wrote Lundmark that “there will be little gain if either of us … strive to pick to pieces small and irrelevant points…. Think how many flaws or hasty conclusions you or I might find in your big paper on the distances of globular clusters.” HUA, Shapley to Lundmark, July 15, 1922. Lundmark was deeply upset by Shapley's remarks and did stop his criticism of van Maanen's work for a while, lest others start putting his own findings under a microscope. HUA, van Maanen to Shapley, October 21, 1922. Robert Smith points out that Lundmark had the opportunity to remeasure van Maanen's plates during a stay at Mount Wilson in the early 1920s and was briefly convinced that van Maanen had detected some real motions in the spirals, which made him deem the island-universe theory “rather hopeless.” But by 1924 additional study convinced Lundmark he had been wrong, returning him to the island-universe fold. See Smith (1982), p. 108.
165 “celestial speed champion” … “many millions of light years” away: Slipher (1921), p. 6.
165 “increases the probability”: Öpik (1922), p. 410.
165 “Shapley couldn't swing the thing alone” … “and I might keep Shapley from too riotous an imagination,—in print”: HP, Russell to Hale, June 13, 1920.
166 “I would rather do astronomy”: DeVorkin (2000), p. 169.
166 “Chief Observer or something of the sort”: HUA, Julian L. Coolidge to Shapley, November 24, 1920.
166 He, a bit miffed, curtly turned it down: HUA, Shapley to A. Lawrence Lowell, December 10, 1920.
166 try him out for a year as chief of staff: George Hale first made this suggestion in a letter to Harvard president Lawrence Lowell. “You might give Dr. Shapley for a year some position such as you recently offered him for a longer period,” he wrote. “This would enable you to test his scientific and personal qualifications, with the purpose of appointing him Director in the case of a favorable outcome…. I am willing to give him a leave of absence for a year if you wish to try this plan.” HP, Hale to Lowell, December 11, 1920. Complete behind-the-scenes details on Shapley's struggle to garner the Harvard appointment is found in Gingerich (1988).
166 “a kind of rotating galaxy for ideas”: Hoagland (1965), p. 429.
166 bounding up the stairs two steps at a time: Payne-Gaposchkin (1984), p. 155.
166 “He cast spells over people”: AIP, interview with Helen Sawyer Hogg by David DeVorkin on August 17, 1979.
166 band of enthusiastic workers: AIP, interview of Harry Plaskett by David DeVorkin on March 29, 978.
166 “he inspired us all”: AIP, interview of Leo Goldberg by Spencer Weart on May 16, 1978.
166 He also stubbornly ignored new scientific data at times: AIP, interview with Jesse Greenstein by Paul Wright on July 31, 1974.
166 “I thought I told you that I left Mount Wilson just to avoid this ordeal”: HL, Walter Adams Papers, Shapley to Gianetti, July 29, 1921.
166 tendered his resignation ten days before the Washington debate took place: LOA, Curtis to Campbell, April 16, 1920.
167 “the biggest mistake he ever made”: AIP, interview with C. Donald Shane by Elizabeth Calciano in 1969.
167 “the California combination of instruments PLUS climate”: Osterbrock, Gustafson, and Unruh (1988), p. 146.
167 “You play golf don't you? Well, this is my golf”: Stebbins (1950), June 24.
167 “memorable set-to” … “I have always thought that the clubs we wielded at each other….”; “watching the strife with interest”: HUA, Curtis to Shapley, July 10, 1922.
168 “photographing, photographing….” … “hunt for novae and variables”: LOA, Curtis to Aitken, January 2, 1925.
168 “I am copying that instrument in my design far more than any other”: LOA, Curtis to Aitken, March 16, 1934.
11. Adonis
169 “Adonis”: HUB, Box 7, Grace's memoirs.
169 “Had we been casting”: HUB, Box 8, Anita Loos remembrance.
169 adding dubious credentials to his curriculum vitae: This may have been a family trait. Hubble's father was described by his family as working at certain positions, which it was later discovered he never held. See Christianson (1995), p. 12.
170 And the longer time went on, said astronomer Nicholas Mayall, who once worked with Hubble, the higher the pedestal got: AIP, interview of Nicholas U. Mayall by Bert Shapiro, February 13, 1977.
170 he ruled his domestic realm with a firm puritanical hand, a strictness that was balanced by the more forgiving and accessible mother: HUB, Box 8, Helen Hubble memoir.
170 In high school: Facts concerning Hubble's high school accomplishments come from HUB, Box 2.
170 “He always seemed to be looking for an audience to which he could expound some theory or other”: Christianson (1995), p. 31.
171 “outlandish” career choice: Ibid., p. 40.
171 Hubble compromised by taking science classes … as well as … classics: HUB, Box 25, undergraduate course book.
172 “Motor cars, at last, were successfully competing with horses”: HUB, Box 1, Folder 23, pp. 1–2.
172 “whiz” at calculus, who “often utterly dumfounded” the professor: HUB, Box 19, John Schommer to Grace Hubble, May 15, 1958.
172 best physics student: HUB, Box 25, “The Daily Maroon,” January 26, 1910.
172 Chicago promoters were eager for him to turn professional: HUB, Box 7, “University of Chicago, 1906–1910, 1914–1917,” p. 3.
172 Good in academics but not “mere bookworms” … “moral force of character”: Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911).
173 “man of magnificent physique, admirable scholarship, and worthy and lovable character”: HUB, Box 15, Millikan to Edmund James, January 8, 1910.
173 three years on an annual stipend of fifteen hundred dollars: HUB, Box 25, “The Daily Maroon,” January 26, 1910.
173 “considerable ability. Manly”: Osterbrock, Brashear, and Gwinn (1990), p. 4.
173 “had transformed [Hubble], seemingly, into a phony Englishman, as phony as his accent”: Christianson (1995), p. 64.
173 “I sometimes feel that there is within me, to do what the average man would not do”: Ibid., p. 67.
173 “Why not be first in Rome?”: HUB, Box 8, Grace's memoirs.
174 translating what may have been legal correspondence: Christianson (1995), p. 86.
174 All this time he was actually teaching at the high school in New Albany, Indiana … dedicated the school's 1914 yearbook to him: HUB, Box 22A.
174 “So I chucked the law”: HUB, Box 7, “Hubble: A Biographical Memoir.” Hubble was eventually awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of California in 1949.
175 “splendid specimen,” who showed “exceptional ability”: Osterbrock, Brashear, and Gwinn (1990), p. 5.
176 “Send us three hundred words expressing your ideas on the habitability of Mars”: Frost (1933), p. 217.
176 “Those who have visited a large observatory on such a night”: Ibid., p. 205.
176 “So you say that each of those points of light is a sun”: Ibid., p. 207.
177 Frost himself was slowly losing his eyesight due to cataracts: Christianson (1995), p. 95.
178 “Suppose them to be extra-sidereal [outside the Milky Way] and perhaps we see clusters of galaxies”: Hubble (1920), p. 75.
178 “But it shows clearly the hand of a great scientist groping toward the solution of great problems”: Osterbrock, Brashear, and Gwinn (1990), p. 7.
178 “questions await their answers for instruments more powerful than those we now possess”: Hubble (1920), p. 69.
178 “I have offered Hubbell [sic] a position with us at $1200. per year”: HP, Hale to Adams, November 1, 1916.
179 he didn't have the money to offer his graduating student a well-paid position: HP, Henry Gale to Adams, April 4, 1917.
179 Within days Hubble asked Frost for a letter of recommendation … a military reservation on Lake Michigan, north of Chicago: Osterbrock, Brashear, and Gwinn (1990), pp. 8–9.
179 “scimpy”: Christianson (1995), p. 101.
179 Hubble had already sent a letter: MWDF, Hubble to Hale, April 10, 1917.
179 “to renew as soon as you are able to accept it”: MWDF, Hale to Hubble, April 19, 1917.
180 “Stirring times”: Osterbrock, Brashear, and Gwinn (1990), p. 9.
180 rendered unconscious at one point by a shell exploding nearby: HUB, Box 7, Grace's memoir.
180 no “wound chevrons” were authorized: HUB, Box 25, discharge certificate.
180 “I barely got under fire”: Christianson (1995), p. 109.
180 posh dinner hosted by the best and the brightest of British astronomy: Ibid., p. 110.
181 “My interest has for the most part been with nebulae especially photographic study of the fainter ones”: MWDF, Box 159, Hubble to Hale, May 12, 1919.
181 “I had been hoping” … “as we expect to get the 100-inch telescope into commission very soon”: MWDF, Hale to Hubble, June 9, 1919.
181 arrived in New York on August 10: Osterbrock, Brashear, and Gwinn (1990), p. 11.
181 “Just demobilized. Will proceed Pasadena at once unless you advise to contrary”: MWDF, Hubble to Hale, August 22, 1919.
181 September 11, 1919: Christianson (1995), p. 122.
12. On the Brink of a Big Discovery—or Maybe a Big Paradox
182 He was a man of endless enthusiasms: It's been suggested that Hale suffered a severe form of manic depression, a psychiatric syndrome marked by periods of elevated mood, physical restlessness, and sharpened creative thinking, interlaced with bouts of depression. See Sheehan and Osterbrock (2000).
182 “a driving power which was given no rest until it had brought his plans and schemes to fruition”: Wright (1966), p. 17.
182 “He has reached a place where scientific work and honors are not enough”: Osterbrock (1993), p. 157.
182 In the summer of 1906 he spent a weekend at the home of John Hooker … secret of their mysterious nature: Wright (1966), pp. 252–53; Osterbrock (1993), p. 92.
183 Hale's younger brother, Will, once called George the greatest gambler in the world: Wright (1966), p. 184.
183 “We don't pay for this!”: Ibid., p. 254.
183 “that glass was in the bottom of the ocean”: Wright (1966), p. 263. Evelina Hale through these times fiercely protected her husband and wished the 100-inch glass disk gone in a letter dated December 24, 1910, to astronomer Walter Adams, who served as the Mount Wilson Observatory's acting director in Hale's absence. In that message she beseeched Adams to send no bad news to Hale during his recovery.
184 made a good case: See Sheehan and Osterbrock (2000), p. 105.
184 he initiated the grinding: Osterbrock (1993), p. 142.
184 “there was more publicity … than was desirable”: MWDF, Adams to Hale, July 5, 1917.
185 “To add to the gloom”: Adams (1947), p. 301.
185 first Hale then Adams returned … at 2:30 in the morning: Wright (1966), pp. 318–20.
185 “High in heaven it shone”: Noyes (1922), pp. 2–3.
186 “Very little has been done with it … because of the war contracts in the shop”: HUA, Shapley to R. G. Aitken, October 14, 1918.
186 Ritchey, for example, had to turn his attention to making lenses and prisms: Osterbrock (1993), pp. 144–45.
186 “In such an embarrassment of riches”: Hale (1922), p. 33.
187 took about an hour then to make the journey in a motorcar: HUB, Box 7, “Hubble: A Biographical Memoir.”
187 Seven days later Hubble tried out the 60-inch telescope … “striking changes have happened [in t] since 1916”: HUB, Box 29, Logbook; HUB, Box 7, “Hubble: A Biographical Memoir.”
187 “He was photographing at the Newtonian focus of the 60-inch”: Humason (1954), p. 291.
187 what he called his “magic mirror”: HUB, Box 1, “The Exploration of Space” lecture.
187 Hubble's first night on 100-inch: HUB, Box 29, Logbook.
188 The variable nebula soon became his observational “mascot”: This is according to Milton Humason. HUB, Box 7, “Hubble: A Biographical Memoir.”
188 each was entered into his official Observing Book: HUB, Box 7, “Hubble: A Biographical Memoir.”
188 got a paper published fairly quickly: Seares and Hubble (1920).
188 “to determine the relation of nebulae to the universe”: LWA, Hubble to Slipher, April 4, 1923.
188 “We are on the brin
k of a big discovery—or maybe a big paradox”: HUA, Russell to Shapley, September 17, 1920.
188 “I have just gone into the lecture room, pressed a button, and heard records”: LOA, Curtis Papers, Curtis to Campbell, January 26, 1922.
189 Hubble cultivated an air of sophistication and restraint: AIP, interview with Nicholas U. Mayall, June 3, 1976.
189 occasionally blow smoke rings out into the room: HUB, Box 7, Grace's memoir.
189 “stuffed shirt”: CA, interview with Jesse L. Greenstein by Rachel Prud'homme, February 25, March 16, and March 23, 1982.
189 “write an inter-office memo”: AIP, interview of Halton Arp by Paul Wright, July 29, 1975.
189 wearing jodhpurs, leather puttees, and a beret while observing: AIP, interview of Horace Babcock by Spencer Weart on July 25, 1977.
189 “Bah Jove” … “Missourian tongue” … “Hubble disliked van Maanen from the time he himself arrived on Mount Wilson” … “Hubble just didn't like people”: Shapley (1969), p. 57.
190 “conscientious slacker”: AIP, interview of Dorritt Hoffleit by David DeVorkin on August 4, 1979.
191 “lend some color to the hypothesis that the spirals are stellar systems”: Hubble (1920), p. 77.
191 the term non-galactic didn't mean the spirals were necessarily “outside our galaxy”: Hubble (1922), p. 166.
191 “half a dozen of the largest spirals in addition to Andromeda should be followed carefully for novae”: LWA, Hubble to Slipher, February 23, 1922.
192 “I must confess that I am rather dazed by [Hubble's] letter”: LWA, Wright to Slipher, March 7, 1922.
192 particularly fired up about a nebula classification scheme: LWA, Hubble to Slipher, February 23, 1922.
192 “pathologically shy around colleagues with whom he had little … contact”: Sandage (2004), p. 525.
193 “What a powerful instrument the 100-inch is in bringing out those desperately faint nebulae”: HUA, Shapley to Hubble, August 3, 1923.
194 “It appears to be a great star cloud that is at least three or four times as far away as the most distant of known globular clusters”: Shapley (1923b), p. 2.
194 “the most distant object seen by man, another universe of stars”: “A Distant Universe of Stars” (1924), p. x.