![]() ![]() The famous British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking wrote in his book A Brief History of Time that Hubble's "discovery that the Universe is expanding was one of the great intellectual revolutions of the 20th century." Who could have guessed such a future for Edwin when he began his PhD in Astronomy at Chicago University in 1914? War postpones Hubble's astronomical debutĮarly in 1917, while still finishing the work for his doctorate, Hubble was invited by George Ellery Hale, founder of the Mount Wilson Observatory, in Pasadena, California, to join the staff there. When the school term ended in May 1914, Hubble decided to pursue his first passion and so returned to university as a graduate student to study more astronomy. His popularity as a teacher is recorded in the school yearbook dedicated to him: "To our beloved teacher of Spanish and Physics, who has been a loyal friend to us in our senior year, ever willing to cheer and help us both in school and on the field, we, the class of 1914, lovingly dedicate this book." He was also hired by New Albany High School in the autumn of 1913 to teach Spanish, Physics and Mathematics and to coach basketball. The beloved high school teacher and coach Here he passed the bar examination and practised law half-heartedly for a year in Kentucky, where his family was then living. He studied Roman and English Law at Oxford and returned to the United States only in 1913. There, a promise made to his dying father, who never accepted Edwin's infatuation for astronomy led him to study law rather than science, although he also took up Literature and Spanish. The Rhodes scholarĪ tall, powerfully built young man, Hubble loved basketball and boxing and the combination of athletic prowess and academic ability earned him a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford. He finally obtained a degree in Mathematics and Astronomy in 1910. He paid his expenses by tutoring, working in the summer and, in his junior year, by obtaining a scholarship in physics and working as a laboratory assistant. This high school scholarship was also awarded to another student by mistake, so the money had to be halved and Edwin had to supply the rest. At his high school graduation in 1906, the principal said: " Edwin Hubble, I have watched you for four years and I have never seen you study for ten minutes." He paused, leaving young Edwin on tenterhooks a moment longer, before continuing: "Here is a scholarship for the University of Chicago." A promising studentĮdwin Hubble was born in Missouri in 1889, the son of an insurance executive, and moved to Chicago nine years later. When scientists decided to name the Space Telescope after the founder of modern cosmology the choice could not have been more appropriate. A man who eventually broke the promise made to his father and followed the path dictated by his passion.Īs a result of Hubble's work, our perception of mankind's place in the Universe has changed forever: humans have once again been set aside from the centre of the Universe. This sentence, written by Edwin Hubble recalling his youth, tells us a lot about this stubborn, ambitious, sometimes even snobbish and arrogant young man. (Courtesy of the Archives, California Institure of Technology.) "I knew that even if I were second or third rate, it was astronomy that mattered."Įdwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953). No Nobel Prize for an astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble War postpones Hubble's astronomical debut Both figures have been revised by a factor of about 10 since Hubble's death but the principles he laid down remain unchanged.The beloved high school teacher and coach He assigned to the knowable universe a radius of about 18 billion light-years and an age of about 2 billion years. He went on to use this linear relationship, since known as Hubble's law, to measure the universe. Hubble thus demonstrated the reality of the expanding universe. Using measurements of galactic red shifts obtained by his colleagues at Mount Wilson, Hubble found that there was a linear relationship between the velocity of the receding galaxies and their distance from the earth. After a year's military service in France, Hubble joined the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, where he spent the rest of his life. Hubble began to practise law in 1914 but the attraction of astronomy became too strong and he returned to the University of Chicago, where he gained his PhD in 1917. ![]() An excellent athlete, he fought against the French boxer Georges Carpentier and was offered a match with the world champion, Jack Johnson. The son of a lawyer, Hubble studied law at the University of Chicago and Oxford University. US astronomer, who discovered Hubble's law and established the reality of the expanding universe on experimental evidence. ![]()
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