Bibliograph

Edwin Hubble, mariner of the nebulae, Gale E. Christianson

Type

Label

Edwin Hubble, mariner of the nebulae, Gale E. Christianson

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 397-401) and index

resource.biographical

individual biography

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Edwin Hubble

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

31816407

Responsibility statement

Gale E. Christianson

Sub title

mariner of the nebulae

Summary

Born in 1889 and reared in the village of Marshfield, Missouri, Edwin Powell Hubble - star athlete, Rhodes Scholar, military officer, astronomer - became one of the towering figures in twentieth-century science. Hubble worked with the great 100-inch Hooker telescope at California's Mount Wilson Observatory, and made a series of discoveries that revolutionized humanity's vision of the cosmos. In 1923 he was able to confirm the existence of other nebulae, or what are now called galaxies, beyond our own Milky Way. By the end of the decade, he had proven that the universe is expanding, thus laying the very cornerstone of the "Big Bang" theory of creation. It was Hubble who developed the elegant scheme by which the galaxies are classified as ellipticals and spirals, and it was Hubble who first provided reliable evidence that the universe is homogenous, the same in all directions as far as the telescope can see. An incurable Anglophile with a penchant for tweed jackets, knickers, and English briars, Hubble, together with his brilliant and witty wife, Grace Burke, became a fixture of Hollywood society in the thirties and forties - they counted among their friends Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Anita Loos, Aldous and Maria Huxley, Walt Disney, Helen Hayes, and William Randolph Hearst. Albert Einstein, a frequent visitor to Southern California, called Hubble's work "beautiful" and modified his equations on relativity to account for the discovery that the cosmos is expanding

Table Of Contents

Marshfield -- "An awful moment" -- "A thing so outlandish" -- A son of queen's -- Heaven's gate -- Reconnaissance -- The cosmic archipelago -- Uncharted waters -- Mariner of the nebulae -- "Your husband's work is beautiful" -- "Almost a miracle" -- "Now whom do we want to meet?" -- Landlocked -- Dark passage -- Home is the sailor -- Epilogue

Classification

Creator