The Hubble

Galaxy M74  Source: Hubblesite.org

Believe it or not (or care or not), not too long ago the universe was understood to be exponentially smaller than our current understanding of it is. Prior to 1925, our galaxy, the Milky Way, was thought to encompass the entirety of the universe. At that time it was still mind-bogglingly large enough to contain hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of stars. Marcia Bartusiak wrote in “The Day We Found the Universe” that:

“The cosmos consisted solely of a vast collection of stars, a disk shaped distribution somewhat flattened, with the Sun situated in an honored place near the center. Beyond that, said most astronomers, was simply a void…”                                                                                                                         

But that all changed, in one of the greatest discoveries of all time, when Edwin Hubble sent a paper to the American Astronomical Society Meeting in New York on January 1st, 1925 identifying the Milky Way as only one of maybe millions of “Island Universe” galaxies dotting a far vaster landscape than could have been imagined.
                                                                        
Unfortunately, that is a simple way of viewing the transition in understanding in the late19th century and early 20th century. In reality the concept of “Island Universes” had been proposed and hotly debated for more than 50 years prior to the “discovery” by Hubble. This was not to say Hubble was not brilliant and accomplished, but rather that his studiousness and attention to detail enabled him to build on the successes of many people before him. Astronomers, physicists, mathematicians, engineers, lens makers, and a whole host of other characters laid the ground work that enabled Hubble to identify the shift in a distant stars brightness and correlate it to a distance far greater than was understood. If Hubble wasn’t the one who figured it out, would anyone have? Maybe. Maybe not. But there is no doubt the timing was ripe.

The point you ask, is that greatness often does not stand alone. Scientific break-throughs and individual achievements rarely are a result of insulated action or hard work alone. Determining what has been done previously so as not to repeat the effort is critical to success.

How can you rely on the successes of others to reduce your effort?

Song of the Day
In honor of Edwin Hubble, those who paved the way, and really bad 80’s rock videos, the song of the day is The Church’s “Under the Milky Way.”