The Day We Found the Universe - Marcia Bartusiak [158]
157 “Should I go ahead, shoot my shot (or wad)”: Ibid.
157 “at least a brief statement of how you explain them if not island universes”: HUA, Curtis to Shapley, September 8, 1920.
157 “appear fatal to such an interpretation”: Shapley and Curtis (1921), p. 192.
157 “I see no reason for thinking them stellar or universes”: HUA, Shapley to Russell, September 30, 1920.
157 “the island universe theory must be definitely abandoned”: Shapley and Curtis (1921), p. 214.
159 Van Maanen was the descendant of an aristocratic family … a rare find at the time: Berendzen and Shamieh (1973), p. 582, and Seares (1946).
159 “One always returns to one's first love,” he scribbled on the title page of a 1944 paper on stellar parallaxes: Sandage (2004), p. 127, and van Maanen (1944).
159 “Do not use this stereocomparator without consulting A. van Maanen”: Trimble (1995), p. 1138.
159 played a good game of tennis: AIP, interview of Nicholas U. Mayall, June 3, 1976.
160 “He could go to a dinner and soon have the whole table laughing”: Shapley (1969), p. 56.
160 An accomplished chef: Sandage (2004), p. 129.
160 “Van Maanen and I are in ill-favor because we do or try to do too much”: HUA, Shapley to G. Monk, January 28, 1918.
160 van Maanen always seemed to see this effect: Hetherington (1990b), p. 30.
160 Ritchey was then using Mount Wilson's 60-inch telescope … details never before captured: Ibid., pp. 31–33.
160 at first measured no variation but got permission from Ritchey to keep the plates to study them further: HP, van Maanen to Hale, May 2, 1916; Hale to Chamberlin, December 28, 1915.
160 he chose thirty-two stars … would be negligible: Hetherington (1990b), p. 35.
161 “If the results … could be taken at their face value”: Van Maanen (1916), pp. 219–20. John Duncan, just appointed director of the Wellesley College Observatory, in Massachusetts, took a long trip west to visit observatories in the summer of 1916. There he assisted in giving the new 100-inch mirror its first coat of silver and wrote Slipher that “van Maanen, who is a very enthusiastic Dutchman, has measured with the Blink some photographs of Messier 101 made some years apart and gets what seems to be certain evidence of a motion along the arms of the spiral.” LWA, Duncan to Slipher, July 14, 1916.
161 meant … the nebula's edge had to be traveling faster than the speed of light: Shapley (1919e), p. 266.
161 van Maanen followed all the precautions: Hetherington (1990b), p. 37.
161 “While the recent revival of the notion that spiral nebulae are mere distant constellations”: HP, Chamberlain to Hale, January 31, 1916.
161 “might indicate that these bodies are not as distant as is usually supposed to be the case”: Hetherington (1974b), pp. 52–53.
161 “So that we do not know yet if this is an island universe!”: HP, van Maanen to Hale, December 17, 1917.
162 “His wide experience in astrometric work”: HL, Walter Adams Papers, Adams to John C. Merriam, August 15, 1935.
162 “a much greater time interval will probably be necessary before nebular rotations can be definitely established”: Hetherington (1990b), p. 26.
162 “The mean of five measures each of which is not worth a damn”: LOA, Curtis Papers, Curtis to Campbell, July 11, 1922.
162 “entirely in agreement with some speculations in which I have recently been indulging”: Jeans (1917a), p. 60.
162 both van Maanen and Jeans began to calculate higher masses for the spirals: Smith (1982), p. 40.
164 seemed to imply his methods were valid: Hetherington (1990b), p. 42.
164 “would be so bold as to question the authenticity of the internal motions”: Smart (1924), p. 334.
164 “I finished … my measures of M51”: HUA, van Maanen to Shapley, May 23, 1921.
164 “Congratulations on the nebulous results!”: HUA, Shapley to van Maanen, June 8, 1921.
164 “I think that your nebular motions are taken seriously now”: HUA, Shapley to van Maanen, September 8, 1921.
164 “raise a strong objection to the ‘island-universe’ hypothesis”: Van Maanen (1921), p. 1.
164 “which, obviously, are extremely improbable”: Ibid., p. 5.
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