The Day We Found the Universe - Marcia Bartusiak [146]
33 “follow up his remarkable beginnings”: LOA, Hale to Campbell, September 14, 1900.
34 Keeler died unexpectedly: Osterbrock (1984), pp. 327–29; Tucker (1900), p. 399; Campbell (1900a), pp. 139–46.
34 “a hard cold”: LPV, Crossley Reflector Logbook, Keeler, December 1, 1899, to July 24, 1900.
34 “nothing very serious”: Osterbrock (1984), p. 327.
34 “incalculable”: Campbell (1900b), p. 239.
34 “loss cannot be overestimated”: Jones and Boyd (1971), pp. 428–29.
34 The journal Science ran a tribute: Hale (1900).
34 “The day of the refractor was over”: Osterbrock (1984), p. 347.
35 he decided to build another 36-inch reflector: Ibid., pp. 345–46.
35 “The results obtained with the two-foot reflector”: Ritchey (1901), pp. 232–33.
3. Grander Than the Truth
36 “Let us assume for the moment”: Webb (1999), p. 9.
36 “the center of the universe is everywhere”: Impey (2001), p. 38.
37 “If the Matter was evenly disposed”: Kerszberg (1986), p. 79.
37 “There is a size at which dignity begins”: T. Hardy (1883), p. 38.
38 “no other than a certain Effect”: Wright (1750), p. 48.
40 “I don't mean to affirm”: Ibid., p. 62.
40 “too remote for even our telescopes to reach”: Ibid., p. 84.
40 “there may be innumerable other spheres”: Swedenborg (1845), pp. 271–72.
40 what they thought he meant: See Hoskin (1970).
40 “just universes and, so to speak, Milky Ways”: Kant (1900), p. 63.
41 Kant's manuscript was destroyed: Hetherington (1990b), p. 15.
41 “I easily persuaded myself”: Kant (1900), p. 33.
41 “island universes”: The phrase was never used by Kant. Humboldt first applied the term to describe Kant's theory in his book Kosmos, published in 1845. He wrote it in his native language as Weltinsel, “world island,” which was later transformed into the more familiar expression.
41 Edmond Halley (of comet fame) counted six in all: Not all of the objects on Halley's list were true nebulae. The six are: (1) the Orion nebula, (2) the Andromeda nebula (now galaxy), (3) the globular cluster M22 in Sagittarius, (4) the globular cluster Omega Centauri, (5) the open star cluster M11 in Scutum, and (6) the globular cluster M13 in Hercules. In Halley's day, all appeared as unresolved clouds through a telescope.
42 “appear to the naked Eye”: Halley (1714–16), p. 390.
42 Charles Messier published in France his famous list of more than one hundred nebulae: Messier (1781).
42 “I … saw, with the greatest pleasure”: Herschel (1784b), pp. 439–40.
42 “These curious objects”: Herschel (1789), p. 212.
43 “may well outvie our milky-way in grandeur”: Herschel (1785), p. 260.
43 “When I read of the many charming discoveries”: Bennett (1976), p. 75.
43 Caroline, who had earlier joined him in England, fed him morsels of food by hand: Caroline Herschel was more than her brother's handmaiden; she was an accomplished astronomer in her own right. A proficient comet hunter (she was the first woman to find one), she was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society's Gold Medal in 1828.
43 “confirmed and established by a series of observations.” Herschel (1785), p. 220.
44 capable of seeing out to cosmological distances: Hoskin (1989), pp. 428–29.
45 “I have seen double and treble nebulae”: Herschel (1784b), pp. 442–43, 448. Sixty years before Alexander von Humboldt originated the term island universe, William Herschel actually referred to the possibility that the Milky Way might be an “island” in his classic 1785 paper “On the Construction of the Heavens.” “It is true,” wrote Herschel, “that it would not be consistent confidently to affirm that we were on an island unless we had actually found ourselves every where bounded by the ocean, and therefore I shall go no further than the [gauges] will authorise; but considering the little depth of the stratum in all those places which have been actually [gauged] … there is but little room to expect a connection between our nebula and any of the neighbouring ones.” See Herschel (1785), pp. 248–49.
45 “The inhabitants of the planets that attend the stars”: Herschel (1785), p. 258.
45 “A most singular phaenomenon!