5801 S Ellis Ave, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
This is a photo of the Intercollegiate Basketball Champion team. It includes: From left (second row): Dr. Joseph E. Raycroft (coach), Alfred Crenshaw Kelly, Joy Reichelt Clark; (first row): Edwin Powell Hubble, John Joseph Schommer, William Matthias Georgen (captain), Arthur Charles Hoffman, Harlan Orville Page.
Career
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1920
United States
Portrait photo of Dr. Edwin Powell Hubble around 1920.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1925
United States
Hubble with a model of a model of the 100-inch Hooker telescope.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1930
United States
Edwin Hubble with hi wife grace.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1931
551 S Hill Ave, Pasadena, CA 91106, United States
Left to Right are Dr. M. L. Humason, Ed. P. Hubble, Dr. Charles St John, Albert A. Michelson, Prof. Albert Einstein, Dr. W. W. Campbell, and W. S. Adams.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1931
Mount Wilson, California, United States
German-born physicist Albert Einstein visiting Mount Wilson Observatory, California, which at that time operated the world's biggest telescope, 1931. Among the group are American astronomers Edwin Hubble (back, second from left), Walter Sydney Adams (centre, in hat) and William Wallace Campbell (far right)
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1931
551 S Hill Ave, Pasadena, CA 91106, United States
Dinner given by the California Institute of technology in honor of Dr. Einstein at the Athenaeum in Pasadena, California. Seated, left to right: Dr. Robert A. Millikan; Dr. Albert Einstein; Dr. Albert Michelson; Dr. William Wallace Campbell. Standing left to right: Dr. Charles St. John, Mt. Wilson Observatory astrophysicists; Dr. William B. Munro; Dr. Richard C. Tolman; Mr. Allan C. Balch; Dr. Walter S. Adams and Mr. Russell H. Ballard.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1934
35899 Canfield Rd, Palomar Mountain, CA 92060, United States
Doctor Edwin P. Hubble with the Palomar mount's famous "Big Schmidt", circa 1934.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1937
Mount Wilson, California, United States
Astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble looking through the eyepiece of the 100-inch telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory. Photo by Margaret Bourke-White.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1939
Los Angeles, California, United States
Portrait photo of Edwin Hubble smoking a pipe.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1941
United States
Astronomer Dr. Edwin Powell Hubble sitting in a chair at a desk reading a journal.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1941
Los Angeles, California, United States
Doctor Edwin P. Hubble, of the Mount Wilson observatory, Doctor Robert A. Millikan, of the California Institute of Technology, Doctor Frederick H. Seares, and Doctor Walter S. Adams, both of Mount Wilson Observatory, (left to right) appear in court to testify in the case of Herman Dudley Abrams at the preliminary hearing of charges that he swindled $27,000 from R.W. Hickman and his wife who said that they put up money for the exploitation of a medicinal clay after allegedly being told by Abrams that the scientists had "endorsed" the product. The scientists denied knowing Abrams or endorsing his clay.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1941
California, United States
A portrait of astronomer Edwin Hubble, California, circa 1947.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1945
United States
Portrait of American astronomer Edwin Hubble smoking a pipe.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1947
United States
A pensive portrait of astronomer Edwin Hubble.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1950
35899 Canfield Rd, Palomar Mountain, CA 92060, United States
American astronomer Edwin Hubble poses inside the workings of the huge 200-inch telescope at the Mount Palomar observatory, California, February 2, 1950. Photo by J.R. Eyerman.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1950
United States
Portrait photo of Dr. Edwin Powell Hubble.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1951
1151 Oxford Rd, San Marino, CA 91108, United States
Dr. Edwin P Hubble, R.H. Hadow (British Consul General), Dr. Robert A Millikan. Hadow presents a 468-year-old book to library from Borough of Bermondsey, London to Huntington Library.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1951
1340 Woodstock Rd, San Marino, CA 91108, United States
Portrait of American astronomer Doctor Edwin Hubble, a pipe in his mouth, as he poses with his cat Nicolas Copernicus in his arms, California, 1951.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1953
1340 Woodstock Rd, San Marino, CA 91108, United States
Edwin Powell Hubble, seated with his cat Nicolas Copernicus, behind an armillary sphere and next to an orrery, March 1953.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1913
United STates
Hubble exploring a cave sometime after returning from Oxford.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1916
United States
Hubble's identity card in the American Expeditionary Forces.
Gallery of Edwin Hubble
1917
Hubble with his sister Lucy in 1917.
Achievements
Photo of the Hubble Space Telescope named in honor of Edwin Hubble.
Membership
American Philosophical Society
Edwin Hubble was a member of the American Philosophical Society.
National Academy of Sciences
Edwin Hubble was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Awards
Benjamin Franklin Medal
1939
813 Santa Barbara St, Pasadena, CA 91101, United States
Philip Staples (left), President of the Franklin Institute, presenting the Franklin medal to Edwin Hubble, of The Mount Wilson Observatory, Carnegie Institute of Washington, Pasadena, California, in recognition of his extensive study of the Nebulae. The presentation was made during the Franklin Institute medal day ceremonies, May 17, 1939.
5801 S Ellis Ave, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
This is a photo of the Intercollegiate Basketball Champion team. It includes: From left (second row): Dr. Joseph E. Raycroft (coach), Alfred Crenshaw Kelly, Joy Reichelt Clark; (first row): Edwin Powell Hubble, John Joseph Schommer, William Matthias Georgen (captain), Arthur Charles Hoffman, Harlan Orville Page.
Left to Right are Dr. M. L. Humason, Ed. P. Hubble, Dr. Charles St John, Albert A. Michelson, Prof. Albert Einstein, Dr. W. W. Campbell, and W. S. Adams.
German-born physicist Albert Einstein visiting Mount Wilson Observatory, California, which at that time operated the world's biggest telescope, 1931. Among the group are American astronomers Edwin Hubble (back, second from left), Walter Sydney Adams (centre, in hat) and William Wallace Campbell (far right)
Dinner given by the California Institute of technology in honor of Dr. Einstein at the Athenaeum in Pasadena, California. Seated, left to right: Dr. Robert A. Millikan; Dr. Albert Einstein; Dr. Albert Michelson; Dr. William Wallace Campbell. Standing left to right: Dr. Charles St. John, Mt. Wilson Observatory astrophysicists; Dr. William B. Munro; Dr. Richard C. Tolman; Mr. Allan C. Balch; Dr. Walter S. Adams and Mr. Russell H. Ballard.
813 Santa Barbara St, Pasadena, CA 91101, United States
Philip Staples (left), President of the Franklin Institute, presenting the Franklin medal to Edwin Hubble, of The Mount Wilson Observatory, Carnegie Institute of Washington, Pasadena, California, in recognition of his extensive study of the Nebulae. The presentation was made during the Franklin Institute medal day ceremonies, May 17, 1939.
Doctor Edwin P. Hubble, of the Mount Wilson observatory, Doctor Robert A. Millikan, of the California Institute of Technology, Doctor Frederick H. Seares, and Doctor Walter S. Adams, both of Mount Wilson Observatory, (left to right) appear in court to testify in the case of Herman Dudley Abrams at the preliminary hearing of charges that he swindled $27,000 from R.W. Hickman and his wife who said that they put up money for the exploitation of a medicinal clay after allegedly being told by Abrams that the scientists had "endorsed" the product. The scientists denied knowing Abrams or endorsing his clay.
35899 Canfield Rd, Palomar Mountain, CA 92060, United States
American astronomer Edwin Hubble poses inside the workings of the huge 200-inch telescope at the Mount Palomar observatory, California, February 2, 1950. Photo by J.R. Eyerman.
1151 Oxford Rd, San Marino, CA 91108, United States
Dr. Edwin P Hubble, R.H. Hadow (British Consul General), Dr. Robert A Millikan. Hadow presents a 468-year-old book to library from Borough of Bermondsey, London to Huntington Library.
(In less than a century, the accepted picture of the unive...)
In less than a century, the accepted picture of the universe transformed from a stagnant place, composed entirely of our own Milky Way galaxy, to a realm inhabited by billions of individual galaxies, hurtling away from one another. We must thank, in part, Edwin P. Hubble, one of the greatest observational astronomers of the 20th century. In 1936, Hubble described his principal observations and conclusions in The Realm of the Nebulae, which quickly became a classic work. Two new introductory pieces, by Robert P. Kirshner and Sean M. Carroll, explain advances since Hubble’s time and his work’s foundational importance.
Edwin Powell Hubble was an American astronomer who played a crucial role in establishing the field of extragalactic astronomy. His research helped prove that the universe is expanding, and he created a classification system for galaxies that has been used for several decades.
Background
Edwin Powell Hubble was born on January 20, 1889, in Marshfield, Missouri, United States to the family of an insurance executive John Powell Hubble and Virginia Lee James. His mother was a homemaker who ran the household alone during his father’s frequent absences on business. Edwin was the third of eight children, not all of whom survived childhood.
The Hubble family were financially prosperous. They needed to be mobile because of John Hubble’s insurance career, and they lived in the suburbs of cities including Chicago and Louisville. Their homes were large and prestigious and staffed with servants.
The Hubble children were all given chores to do because their parents believed this helped them develop better characters.
Edwin Hubble began reading when he was an infant, trying to keep up with his elder brother and sister who had started school. His favorite books were adventure stores by Jules Verne and H. Rider Haggard.
When Hubble was seven, his grandfather, who was an enthusiastic amateur astronomer, showed him one of his telescopes. Hubble was so eager to use it that he asked if he could stay up at night studying the heavens rather than have an eighth birthday party.
Education
Edwin Hubble seems to have sailed easily through his studies at Wheaton High School near Chicago. His grades in English, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Latin, and German were usually between 95 and 100. He actually spent more time on sports than study. Encouraged by his father, he worked as a delivery boy during his vacations. He graduated from high school in 1906, age 16, with a scholarship for the University of Chicago.
In the fall of 1906, still 16, Hubble enrolled at Chicago. He continued devoting a great deal of time to sport, particularly basketball, athletics, and heavyweight boxing. In 1910, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree, with credits in sciences including physics and astronomy.
Hubble spent the next three years on the other side of the Atlantic at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. He was still enthusiastic about science, particularly astronomy, but he studied Jurisprudence (the theory of law) in deference to his law-graduate father. Hubble graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1912. He spent a further year learning Spanish. During his time at Oxford, he spent two summer vacations cycling around Europe, but thoughts about his future direction were never far from his mind, and he was thinking big.
In the fall of 1912, Hubble learned that his father was dying. He asked his father’s permission to leave Oxford and return to see him. His father refused, telling his son to keep working. His father died in January 1913.
Hubble returned to the United States in the summer of 1913. After a year as a schoolteacher, he contacted Forest Ray Moulton, an astronomy professor at the University of Chicago, asking about graduate work. Moulton wrote Edwin Frost, head of the university’s Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin, a letter of promotion about Hubble. And so, age 24, Hubble finally entered the field that had fascinated him since he first looked through his grandfather’s telescope almost two decades earlier. He began a Doctor of Philosophy in Astronomy, graduating in 1917 with the thesis Photographic Investigations of Faint Nebulae. In the meantime World War I intervened and Hubble spent a year in the army and a year at the University of Cambridge carrying out astronomy research work.
After returning from the United Kingdom, Edwin Hubble got a job teaching Spanish and Physics at New Albany High School, Indiana. He also coached the school basketball team and did commercial German translation work. He was a very popular teacher, but he did not enjoy it much.
In 1919, aged 30, he began work at Mount Wilson Observatory in California, renowned for its clear air and excellent viewing conditions. He would remain there for the rest of his life.
Hubble studied nebulae for his doctorate, and he returned to this work at Mount Wilson, where he could make observations using the world’s largest telescope, the 100-inch (2.5 m) Hooker Telescope.
While working at Mount Wilson, Hubble proved that other galaxies existed outside of the Milky Way, where Earth is located, by taking photos through the observatory's Hooker telescope and comparing the varying degrees of luminosity among Cepheid variable stars. There had been no clear idea of the Milky Way's size at the time, and through his research, Hubble was able to estimate that the Andromeda Nebula (thought of simply as a spiral at the time) was nearly 900,000 light years away from the Milky Way, thus it had to be its own galaxy. The Andromeda Nebula was later proven to be much farther away, at nearly 2.48 million light years (through further analyses of the spacial indications of stars' light). The Andromeda Nebula was later renamed the Andromeda Galaxy.
In the early-mid-1920s, Hubble began conducting new research, along with fellow astronomer Milton Humason, on the galaxies' spectral shifts and unique distances, particularly looking at their relationship with the earth. He and Humason then published their research in 1929, theorizing that redshifts in galaxies' light emissions - which shows that galaxies are moving away from each other - move at a linear rate to the distance between them. In other words, Hubble was stating that a galaxy's redshift is twice the size as another's when it's twice as far from another galaxy. The two men's research was widely well-received.
In 1936, Hubble published The Realm of the Nebulae, a historical and explanatory piece on his research in the field of extragalactic astronomy. Hubble worked at Mount Wilson Observatory until 1942, when he left to work at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland during World War II. For his service during the war, in 1946, Hubble received the Medal of Merit.
Hubble continued to conduct research at the Mount Wilson Observatory, as well as the Palomar Observatory in California, until he died on September 28, 1953. He had suffered a stroke that was caused by cerebral thrombosis and was 63 years old at the time.
Hubble's work in the field of astronomy was truly revolutionary. By showing that other galaxies existed, scientists had a better idea of the concept of the size of the universe and the possibility of other planets. The classification system for galaxies that he created (now known as the Hubble sequence) has been used by other researchers for nearly a century.
Hubble's work with Humason helped bolster the then-theory that the universe was expanding - a connection that Hubble ardently denied could be made with any certainty, and published his sentiments with the help of chemist Richard Tolman in the mid-1930s. Since then, however, the expanding-universe theory has largely been accepted by scientists worldwide. Hubble's and Humason's research work also helped prove that galaxies must come from a central point of origin, and was used by some scientists to support the Big Bang Theory - one of the most popular theories on the universe's origin, which was first suggested by Georges Lemaître in 1927.
Hubble struggled with religion, having been raised Christian but expressing uncertainty about the existence of God throughout his life. Several biographical accounts attest to his agnosticism.
Politics
Hubble, whose political views were conservative, fumed against Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.
Views
In the early 1920s, benefiting from access to the huge Hooker Telescope, Hubble found Cepheid variable stars located in nebulae. He paid close attention to the Andromeda nebula and discovered that the Cepheid variables within the nebula are at tremendous distances from the earth, much farther than stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.
Hubble realized that the Andromeda nebula is actually a galaxy. Until then, most astronomers thought the Milky Way and the universe were the same thing. Hubble now knew the universe was considerably bigger than the Milky Way; it contained other galaxies or ‘island universes.’
Three days after his thirty-fifth birthday, Hubble’s discovery was announced - not in a scientific journal - but in The New York Times. His results had actually been circulating quietly among America’s astronomers for some time: the official presentation came in a paper he submitted to be read at January 1, 1925, meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Hubble had changed our view of the universe forever. Our own vast galaxy, home to our sun and 100 billion other stars is but one of billions of other galaxies.
Slipher examined a number of nebulae – he did not know they were galaxies – and found light from a large majority of them showed a significant red shift, indicating they were moving away from Earth at prodigious speeds.
In 1929, Hubble took Slipher’s red-shift data and combined it with red-shift observations he and his assistant Milton Humason had made. He plotted the red-shift data against galaxy distance data and found a remarkable correlation. Hubble turned the relationship from his graph into an equation, now called Hubble’s Law.
One interpretation of Hubble’s Law is that we live in an expanding universe. Hubble did not believe there was enough hard evidence to support this interpretation of red-shifts.
In fact, although Hubble brought the scientific world’s attention to Hubble’s Law, the law was in fact discovered two years earlier by Georges Lemaître.
However, Hubble’s point of view was perfectly logical. Although the existence of ‘dark matter’ in the universe often seems a modern concern, Hubble wrote that the red-shifts could only be justified as evidence for an expanding universe if the density of matter in the universe were much larger than had actually been observed.
Quotations:
"We do not know why we are born into the world, but we can try to find out what sort of a world it is - at least in its physical aspects."
"Equipped with our five senses - along with telescopes and microscopes and mass spectrometers and seismographs and magnetometers and particle accelerators and detectors sensitive to the entire electromagnetic spectrum - we explore the universe around us and call the adventure science."
"At the last dim horizon, we search among ghostly errors of observations for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. The urge is older than history. It is not satisfied and it will not be oppressed."
"Science is the one human activity that is truly progressive. The body of positive knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation."
"Eventually, we reach the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows and search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial."
Membership
Edwin Hubble was a member of the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences.
American Philosophical Society
,
United States
National Academy of Sciences
,
United States
Personality
Edwin Hubble’s main hobby was book collecting - particularly books relating to the history of science. He became a trustee of the Huntington Library in San Marino.
Hubble gained a reputation for eccentricities. As a young man, he left America as an all-American college graduate and returned from Oxford as a pipe-smoking English gentleman. Hubble also became prone to exaggerating some of the experiences of his earlier years, such as his sporting achievements.
Hubble’s discovery of other galaxies made him famous. He featured on the front page of Time magazine in 1948, and he and his wife Grace became close friends with the novelist Aldous Huxley and his wife Maria and met many of Hollywood’s stars.
In 1949, age 59, Hubble suffered a serious heart attack. Grace nursed him back to health, but had to reduce his working hours - no more long cold nights at the telescope were allowed.
At Hubble's own request, his final resting place is not known and Grace destroyed his personal papers. When Grace died in 1980 she was buried in the same secret resting place. The only information on the location of the burial is that it is in Switzerland.
Physical Characteristics:
Hubble was six foot two inches tall and strongly built. Records show that on May 6, 1906, he set a new state record for the high jump, clearing 5 feet 8-and-a-half inches.
Interests
fishing, collecting books
Politicians
William Allen White
Writers
Jules Verne, Henry Rider Haggard, Charles Dickens
Artists
Johan Hagemeyer
Sport & Clubs
baseball, football, boxing
Music & Bands
Frédéric Chopin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Douglas
Connections
Hubble married Grace Lillian Burke Leib on February 26, 1924. The couple never had children.