Hubble, Edwin Powell

Biographical Note

Edwin Powell Hubble, an observational astronomer, was born November 20, 1889, in Marshfield Missouri. He attended the University of Chicago (1906-1910), where he studied physics and astronomy, and at Queen's College, Oxford University, where, as a Rhodes Scholar, he received a B.A. in Jurisprudence in 1912. After a year as a high school teacher in New Albany, Indiana, Hubble returned to the University of Chicago in 1914 to do graduate work in astronomy under Edwin Brant Frost at the Yerkes Observatory. Completing his Ph.D. in 1917, Hubble immediately joined the U.S. Army, serving as an officer in the infantry from 1917 to 1919. In 1919, Hubble joined the staff of the Mount Wilson Observatory, a position he held until his death on September 28, 1953. Hubble married Grace Burke, a graduate of Stanford University, on February 26, 1924.

Although Hubble's earliest astronomical observations concerned galactic nebulae, from 1922 on Hubble began to use the 100-inch reflector at the Mount Wilson Observatory to view what are now called galaxies (Hubble used the term "extragalactic nebulae"). In 1924, Hubble published "Cepheids in Spiral Nebulae," which contained the first observational evidence that the nebulae were beyond our own stellar system. In 1926, Hubble presented a system for the classification of galaxies (elliptical, spiral, barred spiral, or irregular). The classification system still in use is based upon the scheme proposed by Hubble. By the late 1920s Hubble began to focus his attention on the determination of an extragalactic distance scale. Combining twenty-four distances he had calculated with the corresponding redshifts, Hubble discovered a linear relation between the distance of distant galaxies and their speeds of recession from us. This relation, known as Hubble's Law, provided the first observational evidence of the expansion of the universe and supported what others had predicted on the basis of Einstein's theory of general relativity. In the 1930s, Hubble studied the distribution of galaxies in the sky and discovered that their distribution was uniform, a conclusion which supported the argument that galaxies are the framework of the universe.

Hubble's astronomical career was interrupted by World War II. From 1942 to 1946 he served as Chief of Ballistics and Director of the Supersonic Wind Tunnels Laboratory at the Ballistics Resarch Laboratories, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. For this service, Hubble was awarded the Medal of Merit.

After the war, Hubble returned to the Mount Wilson Observatory where he became Chairman of the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories Research Committee. Hubble spent much of his time on plans for the use of the 200-inch Hale Telescope, which he was the first to use.

In addition to his observational astronomy, Hubble pursued other interests. An avid student of the history of science and philosophy as well as an ardent Anglophile, Hubble was elected Trustee of the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery upon the death of George Ellery Hale in 1938. In the 1930s, Hubble recognized the inevitability of war with Germany and in the months before the U.S. entered the war he used his notoriety and powers as a public speaker to urge U.S. participation on the side of the United Kingdom. Also an ardent and skilled dry fly fisherman, Hubble spent many vacations in the Rocky Mountains and on the banks of the River Test in England.

From the guide to the Edwin Powell Hubble Papers, 1900-1989, (The Huntington Library)