The Day We Found the Universe

by Marcia Bartusiak

  237 “I regard such first steps as by far the most important of all”: LWA, Hubble to Slipher, March 6, 1953.

  237 “emerged from a combination of radial velocities measured by Slipher at Flagstaff”: Hubble (1953), p. 658.

  237 “if cosmogonists to-day have to deal with a Universe that is expanding”: Stratton (1933), p. 477.

  15. Your Calculations Are Correct, but Your Physical Insight Is Abominable

  239 “I am not sure that I can”: “Report of the RAS Meeting in January 1930” (1930), p. 38.

  240 “I suppose the trouble is that people look [only] for static solutions … that does not matter”: Ibid., p. 39.

  240 “a concept outside their mental framework”: Kragh (2007), p. 139.

  240 Lemaître soon read the remarks Eddington made: Eisenstaedt (1993), p. 361; McVittie (1967), p. 295.

  241 “This seems a complete answer to the problem we were discussing”: Smith (1982), p. 198.

  241 calling it “ingenious”: De Sitter (1930), p. 171.

  241 find him just by pursuing the sound of his full, loud laugh: McCrea (1990), p. 204.

  241 “exceptionally brilliant … quite remarkable both for his insight”: HUA, Eddington to Shapley, May 3, 1924.

  241 Lemaître traveled to the United States for further study … in order to meet Hubble and learn of the latest distance measurements of the spiral nebulae: Kragh (1987), pp. 118–19; Kragh (1990), p. 542.

  242 introduce time into the deliberations: Other theorists began to try this out as well, making de Sitter's model nonstatic. It was a lively and active pursuit among theorists, who included Kornelius Lanczos in 1922, Hermann Weyl in 1923, and H. P. Robertson in 1928. All these transformations, however, were treated as mathematical solutions for largely academic purposes.

  242 “demonstrate the possibility”: Friedmann (1922), p. 377.

  242 “We shall call this universe the periodic world”: Ibid., p. 385.

  243 “appear to me suspicious”: Einstein (1922), p. 326. Several months later, Einstein realized that he had based his negative opinion on an error in his calculations. He immediately wrote to the Zeitschrift für Physik that “Mr. Friedmann's results are correct and shed new light.” See Einstein (1923), p. 228.

  243 They didn't take them seriously: AIP, interview of William McCrea by Robert Smith on September 22, 1978.

  243 “combine the advantages of both”: Lemaître (1931a), p. 483.

  243 “are a cosmical effect of the expansion of the universe”: Ibid., p. 489. The gravitational field of a galaxy, far stronger than the field outside it, keeps the galaxy intact during the expansion.

  244 Lemaître even estimated a rate of cosmic expansion: Kragh (2007), p. 144.

  244 inexplicably did not widely discuss this latest idea with his colleagues: Kragh (1987), p. 125.

  244 “Your calculations are correct, but your physical insight is abominable”: Smith (1990), p. 57.

  245 “not current with the astronomical facts”: Kragh (1987), p. 125.

  245 “no time for an unassuming theorist without proper international credentials”: Deprit (1984), p. 371.

  246 “brilliant discovery”: “Discussion on the Evolution of the Universe” (1932), p. 584.

  246 “Imagine my surprise on being able to rustle together more than 150 references”: CA, Robertson to R. C. Tolman, July 7, 1932. In 1929 Robertson had also derived a cosmological model similar to Friedmann's and Lemaître's but did not recognize the dynamic nature of the universe hidden within his equations. Though aware of Hubble's newfound law concerning distance and redshifts, he didn't recognize it as observational proof for an expanding universe at the time. See Kragh (2007), pp. 142, 146.

  246 reported as breathtaking in its grandeur and terrifying in its implications: “A Prize for Lemaître” (1934), p. 16.

  246 “The theory of the expanding universe is in some respects so preposterous”: “Discussion on the Evolution of the Universe” (1932), p. 587.

  246 “On the face of it”: Jeans (1932), p. 563.

  246 Eddington first devised this picture: Eddington (1930), p. 669.

  246 “embedded in the surface of a balloon”: Ibid.

  247 “About every two weeks some of the men from Mount Wilson and Cal Tech came to the house”: HUB, Box 7, Grace's memoir.

  247 British cosmologist E. Arthur Milne, for example, posited that the expansion of space-time was merely an illusion: Milne (1932); Hetherington (1982), p. 46.

  247 the “tired photon” theory: Zwicky (1929a and 1929b).

  248 Hubble worked for a number of years with Caltech theorist Richard Tolman: Hubble and Tolman (1935).

  248 Hubble made the call that his data were too uncertain, which kept the expanding universe in play: Hetherington (1996), pp. 163–70. Historian Norriss Hetherington first pointed out Hubble's philosophical preference for an expanding, homogeneous universe, despite the noted astronomer's public statements that he was objectively testing all models. In the end, he preferred the simplicity and beauty of general relativity to dreaming up new laws of physics to fit his observations, as Zwicky was doing. Zwicky did not take this verdict sitting down. He famously accused Hubble and the “sycophants” among his young assistants with doctoring “their observational data, to hide their shortcomings and to make the majority of the astronomers accept and believe in some of their most prejudicial and erroneous presentations and interpretations of facts.”

  248 “We cannot assume that our knowledge of physical principles is yet complete”: Hubble (1937), p. 26.

  248 “a desire to show that the red shift was not an expansion”: AIP, interview with C. Donald Shane by Helen Wright on July 11, 1967.

  248 Perusing Hubble's writings on the idea of an expanding universe: All quoted phrases in this paragraph are from Hubble (1937), pp. v and 26.

  249 “around the earth in a second, out to the moon in 10 seconds”: Ibid., pp. 29–30.

  249 “represent either actual recession (expanding universe) or some hitherto unknown principle of nature”: HUB, Box 15, Hubble to Harvey Zinszer, July 21, 1950.

  249 “I just don't understand this eagerness”: Douglas (1957), p. 113.

  16. Started Off with a Bang

  250 “Would it not be more practical to have the herr professor come here”: “Einsteins Start Trip to America” (1930), p. 5.

  250 to hunt for the sole twelve men in the world: “Relativity” (1930), p. A4.

  250 “This reminds me of a Punch and Judy show”: “Einstein Battles ‘Wolves’” (1930), p. 1.

  250 “his face … as smooth as a girl's”: Ibid., p. 2.

  250 Arthur Fleming … first extended the invitation: Sutton (1930), p. A1.

  251 steady round of private engagements: “Einstein's Date Book Crammed” (1931), p. A1; “Notables of World to Opening” (1931), p. B14; Feigl (1931).

  251 Einstein laughed like a little boy: Hall (1931), p. 28.

  251 “They cheer me because they all understand me”: Isaacson (2007), p. 374.

  251 “Your husband's work is beautiful”: HUB, Box 8, “Biographical Memoir.”

  251 Einstein had been given a room at Mount Wilson's main offices … issuing keys: AIP, interview of Nicholas U. Mayall by Norriss S. Hetherington on June 3, 1976.

  252 “I have kept completely out of the Einstein excitement”: HP, Hale to Harry Manley Godwin, January 15, 1931.

  252 carefully orchestrated expedition was arranged for Einstein: HL, Walter Adams Papers, Supplement Box 4, Folder 4.87.

  253 young filmmaker named Frank Capra: In 1918 Capra had graduated from Throop Institute, later renamed the California Institute of Technology, with a BS degree in chemical engineering.

  253 “And here he comes … down from the sun tower”: CA, Einstein Film Footage, 1931.

  253 “This hundred-inch reflector was completed about thirteen years ago”: Ibid.

  254 “Well, my husband does that on the back of an old envelope”: Clark (1971), p. 434.


  254 After an early dinner the party returned to the 100-inch telescope: HL, Walter Adams Papers, Supplement Box 4, Folder 4.87.

  254 on that day he at last conceded: “Einstein Drops Idea of ‘Closed’ Universe” (1931), p. 1.

  254 “A gasp of astonishment swept through the library”: Christianson (1995), p. 210.

  254 “the red shift of distant nebulae has smashed my old construction like a hammer blow”: “Red Shift of Nebulae a Puzzle, Says Einstein” (1931), p. 15.

  254 “biggest blunder”: This is not a direct quote from Einstein. The Russian-American physicist George Gamow relayed this story in his autobiography, saying Einstein used the now-famous phrase while they were having a chat one day. Gamow (1970), p. 44. Ironically, at the start of the twenty-first century, astrophysicists reinserted the constant into their cosmological calculations to help them explain why the universe's expansion seems to be accelerating as the eons pass.

  256 “made Einstein change his mind”: “Hubble to Visit Oxford” (1934).

  256 “It remains to find the cause”: Lemaître (1931a), p. 489.

  256 “beginning of time” … “philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me”: Eddington (1931), pp. 449–50.

  256 “not believe that the present order of things started off with a bang”: Eddington made this remark in a series of lectures given at the University of Edinburgh, later published as Eddington (1928). See p. 85.

  256 Hoyle using a similar description: Hoyle's radio lectures on the cosmos, in which he first used the term Big Bang, were later published. See Hoyle (1950), pp. 119, 124.

  256 “I picture … an even distribution of protons and electrons”: Eddington (1933), pp. 56–57.

  257 “If we go back in the course of time”: Lemaître (1931b).

  257 Lemaître was spurred by the revelations of atomic physics: Kragh (2007), pp. 152–53.

  257 “The evolution of the world can be compared to a display of fireworks”: Lemaître (1950), p. 78.

  258 “Lemaître believed that God would hide nothing from the human mind”: Kragh (1990), p. 542.

  258 Times had assuredly changed: Though Lemaître was both scientist and priest, he believed that science and theology should remain separate entities. He disagreed when Pope Pius XII in 1951 announced that the Big Bang cosmology confirmed the fundamental doctrines of Christian theology. “As far as I can see,” he said, “such a theory [of the primeval atom] remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being.” See Kragh (1987), pp. 133–34.

  259 Baade was able to prove that there were two distinct kinds of Cepheid stars: Baade (1952).

  259 Those who desired nature to be uniform breathed a huge sigh of relief: The astronomical community was aghast when Harlow Shapley went to the press and attempted to claim that he, not Baade, had first discovered the correction to Hubble's distance scale. What he actually did was go back to some of his old observations and simply confirm Baade's discovery after the fact. Sandage (2004), p. 310.

  259 “Never in all the history of science”: De Sitter (1932), p. 3.

  261 “a growing community of American astronomers … by the 1960s were concentrating to an unprecedented degree on the study of galaxies”: Kragh and Smith (2003), p. 157.

  Whatever Happened to …

  262 In 1900 Charles Yerkes moved to New York City: Miller (1970), p. 110.

  262 Within a month, she married Wilson Mizner: Franch (2006), pp. 318–23.

  262 maintains its status as the largest refractor: A 49-inch refractor was displayed at the 1900 Paris Exposition but was never used professionally and ultimately dismantled.

  262 At the end of a long honeymoon in Europe, he and his bride took a balloon ride: Hoyt (1996), p. 233.

  262 the observatory spent a decade fighting in court with his widow for control of his estate…. “opulent squalor” until her death at the age of ninety in 1954: The phrase “opulent squalor” was used by the Reverend Fay Lincoln Gemmell, who did chores for Constance while a theology student in the 1940s. Putnam (1994), p. 104.

  264 “I have so little confidence in the theories of Lemaître, Eddington, et al. in this field that I shall follow the safe if not sane course of just sitting tight”: HUA, Curtis to Shapley, August 24, 1932.

  265 He had hopes for erecting a big reflector for Michigan's use: J. Stebbins (1950). A 36-inch reflecting telescope, dedicated as the Heber Curtis Memorial Telescope, was erected in 1950 on Peach Mountain, northwest of Ann Arbor. It was devoted to the study of galactic and extragalactic structure. In 1967 the telescope was moved to the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

  265 He always considered his work on the nebulae as his greatest contribution to astronomy: McMath (1942), p. 69.

  265 “The truth is … that I have been enjoying from boyhood the things I liked most to do”: Wright, Warnow, and Weiner (1972), p. 99.

  266 He moved to his ranch east of Pasadena, growing lemons, oranges, and avocados and dreaming of designing ever-bigger telescopes, with mirrors up to 320 inches in width: Osterbrock (1993), pp. 160–64.

  266 controversial design for the Naval Observatory scope, worked out earlier in collaboration with the French astronomer Henri Chrétien, would later be used in many giant telescopes: Ibid., p. 282.

  266 “very gracious, kindly person, a real gentleman”: AIP, interview of George Abell by Spencer Weart, November 14, 1977.

  266 Ira Bowen was appointed instead, a decision that simply stunned Hubble: Sandage (2004), p. 530.

  267 When Grace was about to make a turn into their driveway, though, she noticed Edwin breathing shallowly: Dunaway (1989), p. 247.

  267 that rare individual who went from elementary school directly to a PhD: Sandage (2004), p. 192.

  267 “My God, Bill,” he replied, “I've looked in an eyepiece all my life, I don't want to look in any more eyepieces”: AIP, interview of Milton Humason by Bert Shapiro around 1965.

  267 “high noon of his scientific life”: Kopal (1972), p. 429.

  268 His grave is marked by a solid granite rock upon which is inscribed, “And We by His Triumph Are Lifted Level with the Skies”: Bok (1978), pp. 254–58.

  268 wrote a thirty-nine-page memoir: See Adams (1947).

  268 in the early 1940s Hubble proved once and for all that … a spiral's arms are trailing as they rotate, not leading: Berendzen and Hart (1973), p. 91.

  268 Just weeks before his death he finished the measurement of his five hundredth parallax field at the observatory's Pasadena headquarters: Seares (1946), p. 89.

  268 “everywhere the two men went, the lambda was sure to go”: “Amiable Abbe” (1961), p. 42.

  269 at last received news of the discovery: Deprit (1984), p. 391.

  Acknowledgments

  My journey into this special moment in astronomical history began at archives located on both coasts of the United States. For their invaluable help during my research, deep appreciation is extended to archivists Dorothy Schaumberg and Cheryl Dandridge at the Mary Lea Shane Archives of the Lick Observatory; Kristen Sanders and Christine Bunting with the special collections at the library of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Charlotte (“Shelley”) Erwin and Bonnie Ludt at the Caltech Institute Archives in Pasadena; Janice Goldblum at the National Academies Archives in Washington, D.C.; Melanie Brown, Julie Gass, Mark Matienzo, Jennifer Sullivan, and Spencer Weart with the Niels Bohr Library and Archives at the American Institute of Physics in College Park, Maryland; Nora Murphy at the MIT Archives and Brian Marsden with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Harvard University Archives; and Meredith Berbée, Juan Gomez, Kate Henningsen, Laura Stalker, and Catherine Wehrey at the Henry Huntington Library in San Marino, California. There Dan Lewis, Huntington's curator for the History of Science and Technology, was particularly helpful in tracking down last-minute bits of information as th
e book was nearing completion.

  A special thank-you goes to Antoinette Beiser, Lowell Observatory's archivist in Flagstaff, Arizona. Antoinette went to extraordinary lengths to unearth every letter, logbook, journal, and artifact connected to Vesto Slipher, which allowed me to deepen the record on this oft-forgotten astronomer. More than that, she and her friends, the “Thursday Night Wing Dingers,” offered much-needed respite after hours.

  I was certainly not the first to peruse these archives in search of the story behind the discovery of the modern universe. I am hugely indebted to the historians who went before me and blazed the trail. Several graciously offered sage advice and beneficial suggestions while reviewing sections of my work in progress, in particular David DeVorkin, curator for the history of astronomy at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and Robert Smith, professor of history, University of Alberta, Canada. I am especially beholden to Norriss Hetherington, visiting scholar with the Office of the History of Science and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley, who provided guidance and feedback from the very start of my project until its finish. And I thank his wife, Edith, for her cordial hospitality while visiting the San Francisco area. Donald Osterbrock, former Lick Observatory director, provided similar counsel, until, sadly, he passed away at the age of eighty-two in 2007. I am grateful to his wife, Irene, who helped in his historical research, for reviewing the sections that involved his areas of expertise.

  I would like to thank my engaging guides to three of the facilities crucial to this story: Kevin Schindler at the Lowell Observatory, Don Nicholson at the Mount Wilson Observatory, and Tony Misch at Lick Observatory, who also provided copies of historic photographs taken by both James Keeler and Heber Curtis.

  And throughout this long venture, I was fortunate to receive continual encouragement from my colleagues in the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing—Rob Kanigel, Shannon Larkin, Tom Levenson, Alan Lightman, Boyce Rensberger—as well as close friends and family who kept my spirits high with their unceasing interest in my progress. For this I thank Elizabeth Eaton, Linda and Steve Wohler, the McCabes—Tara, Paul, Ian, and Hugh—Elizabeth Maggio, Ike Ghozeil, Sarah and Peter Saulson, Ellen and Marty Shell, Eunice and Cliff Lowe, and my mother, who will celebrate her eighty-eighth birthday soon after this book is published. I am grateful to my agent, Russ Galen, in never wavering to get this project off the ground, and to my editor, Edward Kastenmeier, for his ever enthusiastic advocacy, superb insights, and invaluable suggestions.