Scientists / Physics
エドウィン・ハッブル
US 1889-11-20 ~ 1953-09-28
Twentieth-century American astronomer
Proved galaxies exist beyond the Milky Way and discovered the expansion of the universe
Opened the era of modern cosmology with observations that reshaped our picture of the cosmos
American astronomer born in 1889 who proved that galaxies exist beyond the Milky Way and discovered the expansion of the universe. Hubble's Law reshaped humanity's understanding of cosmic scale and structure.
What You Can Learn
Hubble's discovery that the universe is far larger than assumed parallels the moment a company realizes its addressable market is bigger than expected. His systematic galaxy classification shows the power of taxonomy in making complex domains manageable. And his advocacy for institutional change, pushing for Nobel eligibility for astronomers, illustrates that advancing a field sometimes requires reshaping its institutions.
Words That Resonate
Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.
Observation always involves theory.
The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.
Life & Legacy
Edwin Hubble transformed humanity's picture of the cosmos. He demonstrated that the Milky Way is not the entire universe but one galaxy among many, and he showed that those galaxies are moving apart, revealing that the universe is expanding.
Born in 1889 in Marshfield, Missouri, he studied law at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar before turning to astronomy at the University of Chicago. He joined the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1919, where he had access to the 100-inch Hooker telescope, then the world's largest.
In 1924 he identified Cepheid variable stars in the Andromeda Nebula, proving it lay far beyond the Milky Way. This settled the Great Debate over whether spiral nebulae were nearby gas clouds or distant galaxies. The universe suddenly became vastly larger.
In 1929 he published Hubble's Law: the farther a galaxy is from us, the faster it recedes, a relationship now expressed as velocity equals the Hubble constant times distance. This provided the observational foundation for the Big Bang theory.
Hubble also devised a classification scheme for galaxies, the tuning-fork diagram, which remains in use. He campaigned for astronomers to be eligible for the Nobel Prize in Physics, though he died in 1953 before the Nobel committee changed its rules.
The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990 and one of the most productive scientific instruments in history, was named in his honor. His observations opened the era of modern cosmology.
Hubble's work benefited from his access to the world's best telescope and from the observational skill of his collaborator Milton Humason, who obtained the spectra that revealed galactic redshifts. Together they established a distance-velocity relationship that Georges Lemaitre had already predicted theoretically. The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, has continued to push back the boundaries of the observable universe, fulfilling the legacy of the astronomer whose name it bears.
Expert Perspective
Among scientists, Hubble is the astronomer who expanded the known universe. His proof of extragalactic nebulae settled a foundational debate, and Hubble's Law provided the observational basis for Big Bang cosmology. The space telescope bearing his name has continued to extend the horizons he first pushed back.