The Bruce Medalists: Edwin Hubble

<body bgcolor=#9CCEFF> <font SIZE=8><b><a HREF="../Intro.html" TARGET="main"><font COLOR="#CC6600">The Bruce Medalists</font></a></b></font> <p>   </p> <base TARGET ="new"> <table width=100% CELLSPACING=2 CELLPADDING=0> <tr><td width = 33%> </td><td width = 34% align=center><a HREF="hubble.jpg"><img SRC="hubbleSml.jpg" ALT="" HEIGHT=114 width="91" border="2"></a><td height=middle><font SIZE=1>Photo courtesy Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington</font></td></tr> <tr><td colspan=3 align=center><font SIZE=5><b><font COLOR="#CC6600">Edwin Powell Hubble</font></b></font></A></td> <tr><td width = 33%><b>20 November 1889</b></td> <td align=center width=34%><b>1938 Bruce Medalist</b></td> <td align=right><b>28 September 1953</b></td> </tr> </table> <p>Upon graduation from the University of Chicago, Edwin Hubble won a Rhodes scholarship and earned a law degree at Oxford University. He taught high school for a year in Indiana and then returned to <b><a HREF="http://astro.uchicago.edu/yerkes/virtualmuseum/">Chicago</a></b> and astronomy. After obtaining his doctorate he spent his career, aside from army service in both world wars, at <b><a HREF="http://www.mtwilson.edu/">Mt. Wilson Observatory</a></b>. In 1923 - 25 he <b><a href="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960406.html">identified Cepheid variables</a></b> in nebulae NGC 6822, M31, and M33 and proved conclusively that they are outside the Galaxy, thus demonstrating that our Galaxy is not the Universe. His investigation of these and similar objects, which he called extragalactic nebulae and which astronomers today call galaxies, led to his now-standard <b><a HREF="http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/galaxies/hubble.html">classification system</a></b> of elliptical, spiral, and irregular galaxies, and to proof that they are distributed uniformly out to great distances. (He had earlier classified galactic nebulae.) Hubble measured distances to galaxies and with <b><a href="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1973QJRAS..14..235.">Milton L. Humason</a></b> extended <b><a HREF="../Slipher/index.html">Vesto M. Slipher</a></b>s measurements of their redshifts, and in 1929 Hubble published the <b><a HREF="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/d_1996/hub_1929.html">velocity-distance relation</a></b> which, taken as evidence of an expanding Universe, is the basis of modern cosmology. </p> <p><b><font SIZE="+1"><font COLOR="#CC6600">Presentation of Bruce medal</font></FONT></b><br> <a HREF="../BabcockHD/index.html">Babcock, H.D.</a>, <a HREF="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1938PASP...50...87B"><i>PASP</i> <b>50</b>, 87-96 (1938)</a>.</p> <p> <b><font SIZE="+1"><font COLOR="#CC6600">Other awards</font></FONT></b><br> Franklin Institute, <a HREF="http://www.fi.edu/winners/detail.faw?winner_id=3121">Benjamin Franklin Medal</a>, 1939.<br> Royal Astronomical Society, <a HREF="http://www.ras.org.uk/html/ras_medals.html#Gold">Gold medal</a>, 1940, presented by H.C. Plummer, <a HREF="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1940MNRAS.100..342."><i>MNRAS</i> <b>100</b>, 342-50 (1940)</a>.<br> </p> <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Some offices held</font></FONT></b><br> <a href="http://www.astrosociety.org/">Astronomical Society of the Pacific</a>, President, 1933.<br> </p> <p> <b><font SIZE="+1"><font COLOR="#CC6600">Biographical materials</font></FONT></b><br> <p> Christianson, Gale E., <i><a HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226105210/qid=934674458/sr=1-1/002-6037471-9416644">Edwin Hubble: Mariner of the Nebulae</a></i> (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1996).<br> Christianson, Gale E., Mastering the Universe , <i>Astronomy</i> <b>27</b>, 2, 60 (1999).<br> <a href="http://clubastronomie.free.fr/histoire/hubble.htm">Club Astronomique du Val de Loir</a> [in French]<br> Glass, Ian, <i>Revolutionaries of the Cosmos: The Astro-Physicists</i> (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, UK, 2005).<br> Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute, <a HREF="http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/spacecraft/Primer/Hubble_Expand.htm">Hubble Expands the Universe</a><br> Lemonick, Michael, <i><a href="http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/hubble.html">Time Magazine</a></i><br> Mayall, N.U., <a HREF="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/d_1996/hubble_nas.html"><i>Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Science</i> <b>41</b>, 175-214</a>. <br> <a HREF="../Osterbrock/index.html">Osterbrock, Donald E.</a>, Ronald S. Brashear, & Joel A. Gwinn, Self-made Cosmologist: the Education of Edwin Hubble, in Edwin Hubble Centennial Symposium, Univ. of California, Berkeley 1989, ed. by Richard G. Kron (A.S.P. conference series v. 10), <a HREF="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1990ASPC...10....1O">pp. 1- 18</a> [A brief version, without footnotes, appears in <i>Mercury</i> <b>19</b>, 1, 2 (1990).]<br> <a HREF="../Osterbrock/index.html">Osterbrock,Donald E.</a>, Joel A. Gwinn, & Ronald S. Brashear, Edwin Hubble and the Expanding Universe, <i>Scientific American</i> <b>269</b>, 1, 84-89 (1993).<br> <a href="../Osterbrock/index.html">Sandage, Allan</a>, <a href="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1989JRASC..83..351S"><i>JRASC</i> <b>83</b>, 351-62 (1989)</a>.<br> Sharov, Alexander S. & Igor Dmitrievich Novikov, <i>Edwin Hubble, the Discoverer of the Big Bang Universe</i> (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1993).<br> Wands, David, <a HREF="http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Hubble.html">The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive</a><br> Whitrow, G.J., <i>Dictionary of Scientific Biography </i><b>6</b>, 528-33.<br> <a HREF="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/d_1996/tv_hubble.html">Hubble, Humason, and Hubble's Constant</a> </p> <p><b><font SIZE="+1"><font COLOR="#CC6600">Obituaries</font></FONT></b><br> <a HREF="../Adams/index.html">Adams, W.S.</a>, <a HREF="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1954Obs....74...32A"><i>Observatory</i> <b>74</b>, 32-35 (1954)</a>.<br> Humason, M.L., <a HREF="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1954MNRAS.114..291."><i>MNRAS</i> <b>114</b>, 291-95 (1954)</a>.<br> Robertson, H. P., <a HREF="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1954PASP...66..120R"><i>PASP</i> <b>66</b>, 120-25 (1954)</a>.<br> <b><a HREF="http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~pbrosche/persons/obit/obit_h.html">More obituaries</a></b> </p> <p><b><font SIZE="+1"><font COLOR="#CC6600">Photos</font></FONT></b><br> <a HREF="http://www.aip.org/history/esva/catalog/esva/Hubble_Powell.html">American Institute of Physics</a> <br> <a HREF="http://archives.caltech.edu/">Caltech Archives</a> [many, also at <a href="http://opostaff.stsci.edu/~levay/presres/ehubble/">STScI site</a>]<br> <a href="http://www.astro.louisville.edu/education/hubble_in_louisville/nahs/">1914 New Albany High School yearbookdedicated to Hubble, who taught Spanish and physics and coached basketball that year</a><br> <a href="http://www.pbs.org/deepspace/timeline/tl18.html">Public Broadcasting System</a><br> <a HREF="http://www.igpp.ucsd.edu/aboutigpp/doors.cfm">University of California, San Diego</a> [fishing]<br> <a href="http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/PictDisplay/Hubble.html">University of St. Andrews</a> </p> <p><b><font SIZE="+1" COLOR="#CC6600">Named after him</font></b><br> <a HREF="http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/">Lunar crater Hubble</a><br> <a HREF="http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/MPNames.html#H">Minor Planet #2069 Hubble</a><br> <a HREF="http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/">Hubble Space Telescope</a><br> <a HREF="http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Glossary/Glossary_H.html">Hubble Law, Hubble Constant, Hubble Time, Hubble Flow, etc.</a><br> <a HREF="http://zebu.uoregon.edu/special/beyond.html">Hubble sequence of galaxy types</a> [<a href="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1926ApJ....64..321H">Hubbles original paper</a>]<br> <a HREF="http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/science/astronomy/cbrown/imaging/hvn/introduction.html">Hubbles Variable Nebula, NGC 2261</a> </p> <p><b><font SIZE="+1"><a HREF="HubbleRefs.html" TARGET="_self">More references</a></font></b></p> <p><center><b><a HREF="../index.html" TARGET="_top">The Bruce Medalists</a></b></center></p> <p> <table WIDTH=100%> <tr> <td VALIGN=TOP><font SIZE=-1>Please send comments, additions, corrections, and questions to<br> <a HREF=MAILTO:joe.tenn@sonoma.edu> joe.tenn@sonoma.edu</a><br></td> <td ALIGN=RIGHT VALIGN=TOP><font SIZE=-1><i> <a HREF="http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/tenn/">JST</a> </i><br> <a HREF="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html">2006-01-17</a></td></font> </tr> </table></body>