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Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | 921 HUBBLE | Searching... Unknown |
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Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Son of an overbearing Missouri insurance agent, astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) revolutionized our conception of the universe. Working at Mount Wilson Observatory in California, he proved by the early 1930s that galaxies beyond the Milky Way are rapidly moving away from us. His observational evidence led Albert Einstein to endorse the model of an expanding universe. Catapulted to fame, Hubble, a dashing, formidable figure, hobnobbed with Anita Loos, William Randolph Hearst, Charlie Chaplin and Aldous Huxley. In an exciting biography of a scientific giant who was a very fallible human being, Christianson portrays Hubble as an egotistical, hot-tempered striver who feuded bitterly with colleagues, an antinuclear activist who advocated world government and a prevaricator who claimed to practice law and to have boxed prizefighters to win over his future wife. Biographer of Isaac Newton and Loren Eiseley, Christianson provides close-ups of well-known scientists and astronomers such as Einstein, Harlow Shapley, Percival Lowell and Vesto Slipher. Photos. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
This biography of the astronomer for whom the space telescope is named offers a fascinating view of how the scientific elite lived in the period between the world wars. Born in Marshfield, Mo., in 1889, Hubble was an outstanding student and athlete at the University of Chicago and won a Rhodes scholarship. On his return home from Oxford, he made a perfunctory pass at the legal career his late father had urged upon him, but he soon committed himself to studying astronomy. His scientific career (briefly interrupted by WW I) went into full swing when he moved to Mt. Wilson observatory in California and was able to use the 100-inch telescope, then the finest in the world, to study the galaxies (which he insisted on calling ``nebulae''). He quickly became recognized as the preeminent astronomer of his time. A dedicated Anglophile after his Oxford years, he seized every opportunity to take his wife, Grace, on European junkets, much to the annoyance of his colleagues at Mt. Wilson. An egotistical snob, according to science biographer Christianson (History/Appalachian State Univ.; Writing Lives is the Devil, 1993) the aristocratic-looking Hubble seems to have cut off relations with his family after his move to California, preferring to hobnob with the likes of Einstein, Chaplin, and Aldous Huxley. He feuded with rival astronomers and had no interest in administrative work. Yet his contributions to astronomy are without peer: He established not only that our galaxy is but one of innumerable similar star systems filling the universe in every observable direction, but that these galaxies are receding from one another at speeds proportional to their distancesthe famous ``red shift.'' Only Hubble's death in 1953 prevented his receiving a Nobel Prize in Physicsthere being none in astronomy. A well-researched, well-informed, and revealing study of its complex, brilliant subject and his times, this is one of the most impressive scientific biographies of recent years.
Booklist Review
Hubble, the first astronomer to offer observational evidence supporting the theory of an expanding universe, was lionized by the public in his lifetime (1889^-1953) but considered an irksome personality by his colleagues. Christianson, the author of a well-regarded biography of Newton, fully explores the traits that provoked such diverse reactions in this wonderfully perceptive narrative. He begins with a colorful, empathetic portrait of Hubble's origins in Missouri, his adolescence under a stern, abstemious father, and schooling in England. There, he affected the anglicisms in speech and dress that bemused many who later worked with him, but his excellence as an observational astronomer they could not deny. Scanning the skies with the Mt. Wilson telescope, the world's largest in the 1920s, Hubble vied with others to solve the mystery of the fuzzy nebulae: were they inside or outside the Milky Way? Hubble's resounding answer--that they were galaxies of stars billions of light-years distant--consigned his rivals to historical oblivion; but Christianson's account ably revives the feeling and stakes of that professional contest for glory and renown. After such a coup, the winning astronomer's succeeding years seem inevitably anticlimactic, but Christianson chronicles Hubble's schmoozing with celebrities, war work, and administrative jockeying with the thoroughness that marks the entire work. The first cradle-to-grave biography of Hubble, Christianson's story should endure. --Gilbert TaylorNonboxes
Library Journal Review
Thanks to the space telescope bearing his name, nearly everyone has heard of Edwin Hubble. Unfortunately, few people know about "Hubble's Constant" or his work on the velocity-distance relationship, which, along with his observational data, solidified the concept of the expanding universe. This knowledge allowed us to determine the age of the universe and thus the time of the Big Bang. A professor at Appalachian State University in North Carolina whose earlier works include biographies of Isaac Newton (In the Presence of the Creator, 1984) and a collection of essays on modern astronomers (The Wild Abyss, 1978), Christianson received a Guggenheim Fellowship to write this book. The foundation's money was well spent. Christianson's work is a pleasure to read. Jargon-free and requiring no mathematics, it reads more like a novel than a biography and reveals the man behind the scientist. Tall, handsome, and athletic (he was an accomplished boxer), Hubble led a most interesting life. His circle of friends included Hollywood celebrities as well as men and women of letters. Highly recommended.James Olson, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| 1 Marshfield |
| 2 ""An Awful Moment"" |
| 3 ""A Thing So Outlandish"" |
| 4 A Son of Queen's |
| 5 Heaven's Gate |
| 6 Reconnaissance |
| 7 The Cosmic Archipelago |
| 8 Uncharted Water |
| 9 Mariner of the Nebulae |
| 10 ""Your Husband's Work Is Beautiful"" |
| 11 ""Almost a Miracle"" |
| 12 ""Now Whom Do We Want to Meet?"" |
| 13 Landlocked |
| 14 Dark Passage |
| 15 Home Is the Sailor |
| Epilogue |
| Notes and Abbreviations of Frequently Used Sources |
| Bibliography |
| Acknowledgments |
| Index |
