Edwin P. Hubble:
The man behind the name
When talking about the Hubble
Space Telescope one man is often
forgotten: That man who gave
the space telescope its name:
Edwin Powell Hubble. Today, most
astronomers see him as the most
important observational cosmologist in the 20th century and he
played a crucial role in establishing the field of extragalactic astronomy.
As a result of Hubble’s work, our
perception of mankind’s place
in the Universe has changed f orever: humans have once again
been set aside from the centre
of the Universe. When scientists
decided to name the Space Telescope after the founder of modern cosmology the choice could
not have been more appropriate.
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.”
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.
War postpones Hubble’s
astronomical debut
Early 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. This was a
great opportunity, but it came in
April of a dreadful year. After sitA promising student
ting up all night to finish his PhD
Edwin Hubble was born in Misthesis and taking the oral examiStudio Portrait of Edwin Powell Hubble, dated 1931.
souri in 1889, the son of an insurnation the next morning, Hubble
Photographer: Johan Hagemeyer
ance executive, and moved to
enlisted in the infantry and teleChicago nine years later. At his
graphed Hale: “Regret cannot accept your invitation.
high school graduation in 1906 he gained a scholarship
Am off to the war.”
for the University of Chicago where he finally obtained a
He served in France and next returned to the United
degree in Mathematics and Astronomy in 1910.
States in 1919. He went immediately to the Mount Wilson
Observatory, where the newly discharged Major Hubble,
The Rhodes scholar
as he invariably introduced himself, arrived, still in uniform,
but ready to start observing.
A tall, powerfully built young man, Hubble loved basHubble was lucky enough to be in the right place at
ketball and boxing, and the combination of athletic
the right time. Mount Wilson was the centre of obserprowess and academic ability earned him a Rhodes
scholarship to Oxford. There, a promise made to his dying vational work underpinning the new astrophysics, later
called cosmology, and the 100- inch Hooker Telescope,
father, led him to study law rather than science, although
then the most powerful on Earth, had just been complethe also took up Literature and Spanish.
ed and installed after nearly a decade of work.
He studied Roman and English Law at Oxford and returned to the United States only in 1913. Here he passed
On the mountain Hubble encountered his greatest
the bar examination and practised law half-heartedly for
scientific rival, Harlow Shapley, who had already made
a year in Kentucky, where his family was then living.
his reputation by measuring the size of the Milky Way, our
own Galaxy. Shapley had used a method pioneered by
Henrietta Leavitt at the Harvard College Observatory that
The beloved high school
relied on the behaviour of standardised light variations
teacher and coach
from bright stars called Cepheid variables to establish the
distance of an object.
He was also hired by New Albany High School (New
His result of 300 000 light-years for the width of the
Albany, Indiana) in the autumn of 1913 to teach Spangalaxy was roughly 10 times the previously accepted
ish, Physics and Mathematics, and to coach basketball.
value. However Shapley, like most astronomers of the
His popularity as a teacher is recorded in the school
time, still thought that the Milky Way was all there was to
yearbook dedicated to him: “To our beloved teacher