Edwin Powell Hubble
Edwin Powell Hubble
Edwin Powell Hubble was an American astronomer who played a crucial role in establishing the field of extragalactic astronomy and is generally regarded as one of the most important observational cosmologists of the 20th century. Hubble is known for showing that the recessional velocity of a galaxy increases with its distance from the earth, implying the universe is expanding, known as "Hubble's law" although this relation had been discovered previously by Georges Lemaître, who published his work in a less...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth20 November 1889
CountryUnited States of America
Edwin Powell Hubble quotes about
Observations always involve theory.
A scientist naturally and inevitably ... mulls over the data and guesses at a solution. He proceeds to testing of the guess by new data-predicting the consequences of the guess and then dispassionately inquiring whether or not the predictions are verified.
The great spirals... apparently lie outside our stellar system.
There we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial.
The outstanding feature, however, is the possibility that the velocity-distance relation may represent the de Sitter effect, and hence that numerical data may be introduced into discussions of the general curvature of space.
Science is the one human activity that is totally progressive.
Wisdom cannot be directly transmitted, and does not readily accumulate through the ages.
Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.
Astronomy is something like the ministry. No one should go into it without a call. I got that unmistakable call, and I know that even if I were second-rate or third-rate, it was astronomy that mattered.
Science is the one human activity that is truly progressive. The body of positive knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation.
With increasing distance, our knowledge fades, and fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundary-the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.
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.
I knew that even if I were second or third rate, it was astronomy that mattered.
Past time is finite, future time is infinite.