The Day We Found the Universe - Marcia Bartusiak [170]
267 that rare individual who went from elementary school directly to a PhD: Sandage (2004), p. 192.
267 “My God, Bill,” he replied, “I've looked in an eyepiece all my life, I don't want to look in any more eyepieces”: AIP, interview of Milton Humason by Bert Shapiro around 1965.
267 “high noon of his scientific life”: Kopal (1972), p. 429.
268 His grave is marked by a solid granite rock upon which is inscribed, “And We by His Triumph Are Lifted Level with the Skies”: Bok (1978), pp. 254–58.
268 wrote a thirty-nine-page memoir: See Adams (1947).
268 in the early 1940s Hubble proved once and for all that … a spiral's arms are trailing as they rotate, not leading: Berendzen and Hart (1973), p. 91.
268 Just weeks before his death he finished the measurement of his five hundredth parallax field at the observatory's Pasadena headquarters: Seares (1946), p. 89.
268 “everywhere the two men went, the lambda was sure to go”: “Amiable Abbe” (1961), p. 42.
269 at last received news of the discovery: Deprit (1984), p. 391.
Acknowledgments
My journey into this special moment in astronomical history began at archives located on both coasts of the United States. For their invaluable help during my research, deep appreciation is extended to archivists Dorothy Schaumberg and Cheryl Dandridge at the Mary Lea Shane Archives of the Lick Observatory; Kristen Sanders and Christine Bunting with the special collections at the library of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Charlotte (“Shelley”) Erwin and Bonnie Ludt at the Caltech Institute Archives in Pasadena; Janice Goldblum at the National Academies Archives in Washington, D.C.; Melanie Brown, Julie Gass, Mark Matienzo, Jennifer Sullivan, and Spencer Weart with the Niels Bohr Library and Archives at the American Institute of Physics in College Park, Maryland; Nora Murphy at the MIT Archives and Brian Marsden with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Harvard University Archives; and Meredith Berbée, Juan Gomez, Kate Henningsen, Laura Stalker, and Catherine Wehrey at the Henry Huntington Library in San Marino, California. There Dan Lewis, Huntington's curator for the History of Science and Technology, was particularly helpful in tracking down last-minute bits of information as the book was nearing completion.
A special thank-you goes to Antoinette Beiser, Lowell Observatory's archivist in Flagstaff, Arizona. Antoinette went to extraordinary lengths to unearth every letter, logbook, journal, and artifact connected to Vesto Slipher, which allowed me to deepen the record on this oft-forgotten astronomer. More than that, she and her friends, the “Thursday Night Wing Dingers,” offered much-needed respite after hours.
I was certainly not the first to peruse these archives in search of the story behind the discovery of the modern universe. I am hugely indebted to the historians who went before me and blazed the trail. Several graciously offered sage advice and beneficial suggestions while reviewing sections of my work in progress, in particular David DeVorkin, curator for the history of astronomy at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and Robert Smith, professor of history, University of Alberta, Canada. I am especially beholden to Norriss Hetherington, visiting scholar with the Office of the History of Science and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley, who provided guidance and feedback from the very start of my project until its finish. And I thank his wife, Edith, for her cordial hospitality while visiting the San Francisco area. Donald Osterbrock, former Lick Observatory director, provided similar counsel, until, sadly, he passed away at the age of eighty-two in 2007. I am grateful to his wife, Irene, who helped in his historical research, for reviewing the sections that involved his areas of expertise.
I would like to thank my engaging guides to three of the facilities crucial to this story: Kevin Schindler at the Lowell Observatory, Don Nicholson at the