Edwin Hubble's Silence

In late 1928 Edwin Hubble was right in the middle of using V. M. Slipher's redshift data to prove that the universe is expanding, when Hubble's boss, George Hale, directed him to drop everything and rush to the Grand Canyon and test it as a possible site for Hale's planned 200-inch telescope. On his way, Hubble stopped at Lowell Observatory and met with V. M. Slipher. The letters both men wrote about this visit suggest that Hubble never said a word about his being in the middle of using Slipher's research to transform the universe. At the least, this silence is symbolic of the silence with which astronomical history has often treated Slipher's work. A survey of the historical literature suggests several reasons for this. Theorists and observers in astronomy (and other sciences) have long had different perspectives about how science works, and those who place more importance on theory have tended to credit the idea of the expanding universe to the theorists. Also, many sources indicate that Edwin Hubble was not a modest man or generous about sharing credit.