It is a book for astronomy and cosmology researchers, enthusiasts, and historians of science and scientific discoveries. The discourse is technical, but the vocabulary is not as difficult as one might expect. It has a fair number of mathematical equations, and a very extensive set of notes on almost every page for either source citations or explanations of concepts with referencing as deemed necessary or helpful for clarity purposes. The Realm of the Nebulae is a scientific report. This specific aspect of the universe bears Hubble’s name, just as the first orbital space telescope was named for him as well. It was clearly a unique finding and one which answered one of the most important cosmological question – what is the nature of the universe? Collapsing, closed and fixed, or expanding? The preponderance of the data clearly indicated that expanding was what the answer was consistently showing across observers, across the world, and regardless of what part of the sky into which they looked. Writing at the height of the Great Depression, Hubble carried on his research and reading, observing and mapping, graphing, reading reports of others, and bringing all of these factors together in a unique, seminal way using the laws of general relativity and the Doppler effect associated with the elemental spectrographic results to point to clearly shifted measurements for the same types of chemicals for diverse sources, all of which measured a set of data that consistently came together across most if not all observations across the planet. The basic realization that Hubble documented was the consistent change in the way certain chemical element wavelength spectrographs would change from one object to another which were determined to be at different distances from the points of observation here on Earth. In fact, if anything, the expansion was increasing at a steady rate moving large “island universes” (the term of others not Hubble’s) away from each other and our galaxy at a steadily increasing pace. His observations and his systematic approach to the analysis of the data he received from his viewing of the cosmos led to his discovery that the universe was expanding and had been doing so since the beginning of everything. Second, Hubble, widely regarded as the greatest observational astronomer of the 20th Century, included in his work reports on the work of his colleagues worldwide including and integrating their analyses and findings into those he was making using the best, largest telescope available at the time. By using every scientific monitoring device, special photographic imaging, special photographic emulsions by Eastman Kodak, and collaboration with colleagues, Edwin Hubble’s The Realm of the Nebulae culminates the work of many observational astronomers and brings their efforts into a crystal focus, answering questions about the basic workings of the universe in which we live. Edwin Hubble’s work was some of the most extensive efforts in observational astronomy. Palomar which today barely makes the top 20 largest telescopes on the Earth list. Wilson in Southern California, and they would be among the largest telescopes on Earth until they were surpassed in 1948 by the 200-inch Hale reflector at Mt. In 1908, a 60-inch Hale, followed nine years later with the construction of 100-inch Hook were the principal tools by which Hubbleand others made their observational studies. Wilson Observatory, home of the then largest reflector telescope in the world, the 100-inch Hook Reflector.ĭuring the early 20th century, the construction of reflecting telescopes with ever-increasing primary mirror (aperture) diameter was the order of the day. Almost every page contains at least one or more notes documenting by title, volume, number and page, the names and article titles of the research and observations to which he refers in his own work, including his own articles and documented observations from Mt. He gathered his data by reading the literature in multiple languages from the scientific literature in his field of study. ![]() First, it is a summary of almost a half century of documented observational studies of the universe using observatories around the world. Hubble’s work focuses on the nature of the universe by way of the study of cosmology. Add to these the work reviewed here, The Realm of the Nebulae by Edwin Hubble. In biology, the controversial The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin revolutionized scientific thought on the biological sciences. Toynbee is one such work, focusing on civilizations and how they grow and fail. In the field of history, the twelve-volume A Study of History by Arnold J. There are always books that are considered to be “ground-breaking,” “seminal,” “essential,” (add your favorite superlative here).
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