Quote:
Originally Posted by allan gould
Robert
I read somewhere that most of the data ~80% presented in Hubbles graph is actually Sliphers data to which Hubble added some of the more distant determinations. Hubble did not fully say that he had used Slipher's data or attribute it precisely.
Unfortunately I dont hold Hubbard in high esteem as a scientist, due mainly due to his affectations and lack of consideration and promotion of Humanson's contributions. see wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_L._Humason
Allan |
Allan,
Thanks Allan and others, for your contributions. This thread is getting ever more interesting, and you are spurring me look deeper into the issue of Hubble's true role in the discovery of the expanding universe.
Allan, I think that while your view is highly controversial, given Hubble's very high standing in both professional and amateur astronomical communities, your points should be given careful consideration by historians of science and by the astronomical community.
Perhaps we should find out what Shapley said about Hubble, as Shapley was very much the other first-magnitude star of extragalactic astronomy in the first 50 years of the 20th century.
If Hubble essentially stole Slipher's data, without attributing the data to Slipher, that is a very serious allegation.
(the use of data without attribution still occurs today in science, but computerized search tools have made it much rarer)
Personalities vary enormously amongst professional astronomers;
some of them are friendly and mild-mannered and very helpful gentlemen (and gentlewomen) who are hesitant to claim full credit even for first-rate work they have done themselves, while others of them are out-and-out psychopaths who wish to claim all credit for themselves and to treat the other competing astronomers as 'the enemy'
However, one must distinguish between regard for a person's personality and regard for a person's scientific work.
In my view, a lot of good science has been done by people with deeply defective personalities, e.g. Isaac Newton was a particularly nasty piece of work.
Hard as it is to admit this, the fact remains that some of the great scientists were not at all nice people.....
Best regards,
Robert Lang
P.S.
I will read the Humason wiki ( though many of the science entries in wikipedia are often misleading or wrong in parts.)
Historians will argue forever about attribution of work, especially in controversial cases;
what about Schmidt's recent Nobel Prize, for supernova cosmology research that involved a lot of other people?