The Day We Found the Universe - Marcia Bartusiak [112]
Russell was so impressed by Hubble's accomplishment that he nominated the young Mount Wilson astronomer for membership in the National Academy of Sciences, quite an honor for someone still junior in his profession. Formerly a solid supporter of Shapley's cosmic model, the Princeton astronomer had now done a quick about-face. Just ten months earlier he had been lecturing that spirals were nearby, supported by van Maanen's evidence, but now Russell was telling the managing editor of Science Service that Hubble's find was “undoubtedly among the most notable scientific advances of the year.” He contacted Hubble and encouraged him to publish his results as soon as possible, wanting him to present a paper at the thirty-third meeting of the American Astronomical Society, which was going to be held jointly that year with the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“Heartiest congratulations on your Cepheids in spiral nebulae!” wrote Russell on December 12. “They are certainly quite convincing. I heard something about them from Jeans a month or two ago, and was wondering when you would be ready to announce the discovery. It is a beautiful piece of work, and you deserve all the credit that it will bring you, which will undoubtedly be great. When are you going to announce the thing in detail? I hope you are sending it to the Washington meeting, both, because we all want to know all about it, and because you ought, incidentally, to bag that $1000 prize.” The Council of the American Astronomical Society was ready to nominate Hubble's paper for the prestigious $1,000 AAAS prize (a substantial sum of money in its day) given to the best paper read at the gathering. It was only the second year for the competition, and the Washington Post was reporting “considerable interest” in the outcome.
But Hubble was hesitant to change his plans. As he later related to Russell, “The real reason for my reluctance in hurrying to press was, as you may have guessed, the flat contradiction to van Maanen's rotations.” Van Maanen was a more senior member of the Mount Wilson staff, and Hubble was hoping to avoid a public conflict, even fantasizing that there might be a way to reconcile the two contradictory sets of data. “But in spite of this,” he admitted, “I believe the measured rotations must be abandoned… Rotation appears to be a forced interpretation.”
Russell assumed his letter (and the lure of the prize) would finally persuade Hubble to put aside his concerns and make the discovery official once and for all. As soon as Russell arrived at the Washington conference, he had dinner with University of Wisconsin astronomer Joel Stebbins, then secretary of the astronomical society, and eagerly asked Stebbins whether Hubble had as yet sent in his paper. When Stebbins replied no, Russell was flabbergasted and declared that Hubble was “an ass!! With a perfectly good thousand dollars available he refuses to take it.”
A telegram was quickly drafted, urging Hubble to send his principal results by overnight letter. Both Russell and Shapley stood ready to take Hubble's data, whatever he chose to convey, and turn it into a proper paper for the meeting. But just as Stebbins and Russell were about to go over to the telegraph office, Russell noticed on the floor behind the hotel desk a sizeable envelope addressed to him. Stebbins spied Hubble's name in the return address. Hubble had mailed his paper after all, and in the nick of time. “We walked back to the group in the lobby, saying that we had got quick service,” Stebbins later told Hubble. “That coincidence seemed a miracle.”
In Hubble's absence, Russell stepped in and read the paper to the assembled conferees